


To Serve A Queen

by tielan



Series: Black Jewels Atlantis [4]
Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Black Jewels Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Matriarchy, Slavery, Stargate Atlantis AU: Black Jewels, Teyla Is Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-26
Updated: 2011-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:26:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan has lived in slavery for seven years, used and abused by the Queens who owned him. He swore never to willingly serve one of their kind. But when he is bought by Elizabeth Weir, the Queen of Atlantis territory, he must adjust to a new life - a life that promises honour and service - and love - he never dreamed of.</p><p>He came to her court, wary and embittered, and Elizabeth was determined that he would know his freedom. She sees the man he was born to be - a Warlord Prince with all the strength and power of his caste. And sees a man who she might claim as her Consort, if he could only trust her with his soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ronon counted out the twenty-five lashes in tones of gritted pain and never lost count.

To lose count would be to show weakness and he would never do that before Heleri and her court. They could beat him until he died and he would not break for them: he was stronger than that.

He was stronger than them.

And when they were finished, and the air was salty with his blood, they left him in the sunlight of the gardens, hanging by his arms between the two stone pillars to which he'd been chained for the punishment, while the court went about their daily entertainments.

His neck and shoulders ached, his back screamed, but he gritted his teeth and bore the pain. In seven years they had beaten him and used him, forced him to play their games in the court and in their beds, and he had borne it, stubborn and determined never to submit.

They might take his choices, but they could not take his honour.

He might be a slave, but he did not serve these Queens.

He did not and he never would.

As he hung by his arms, concentrating on his breathing rather than the pain in his flesh, Ronon repeated the words by which he had held himself for seven long years.

 _I am Ronon Dex, Red-Jewelled Warlord Prince of the Blood. And I will serve with honour or not at all._

Seven years ago, the refrain had been easier to remember.

Seven years ago, he'd been newly enslaved, holding onto the belief that someday he'd be free again.

Seven years ago was seven years ago.

Pain was today.

Voices drew near him, conversational and light, and his eyes drifted closed, concentrating on identifying the two women who approached him.

Heleri was obvious enough, her voice shrill and petulant as she spoke with her companion. But the other...

In the bright sunlight, his back afire with pain, Ronon shivered.

The second voice crawled down his spine like a finger gently traced, a clear, rich voice of roses and dawn. Her voice put him in mind of evenings in bed and mornings of pleasure, of the life he’d once lived in Sateda. A life he'd almost forgotten - so far away from this place where he'd only known humiliation and fear. It ignited long-dismissed dreams of a Queen to serve and a witch of the Blood to love, of people who demanded nothing but his protection and returned him their respect.

He didn't need to look at her to know she was a Queen. Her psychic scent coiled around him like a perfume - fresh and light; taming and yet tender; and something stirred within him that he hadn't felt in years.

Then he heard the words she spoke and his soul turned to grit and ashes in his flesh.

"...quite a strong slave, then?"

"Stubborn, more like it," Heleri said. "The only way to keep him in check is to use the ring of obedience. And even that doesn't always stop him."

"A man with spirit," the woman said, sounding appreciative. "How much do you want for him?"

Ronon looked up into green eyes that studied him with cool neutrality and fought back a shudder as one slender finger reached out to tip up his chin and turn his face from side to side, studying him.

He'd seen witches look at him as though he were cattle, and witches regard him with predatory interest; he'd seen witches measure him by his muscles, and witches measure him by his cock.

This woman regarded him with none of that: nothing but a calm emptiness that was worse than any of the prurience or possession he'd previously encountered.

This Queen didn't even think of him as a person.

Beyond the woman, Heleri looked disbelieving. "You want to buy him?"

"You're not willing to sell him?"

Heleri's eyes narrowed. "If you want to use him, I can have him cleaned up." The auburn-haired woman smiled, "I'll exchange him for one of your entourage."

Dark curls were tossed back from skin like dawn alabaster as the woman straightened. "I don't want to use him, Lady Heleri, I wish to purchase him. I have a need for slaves with spirit." Something curled in her voice, a darkness that crawled through Ronon like sweet sleep and bitter poison. He could almost hear the words she didn't say: _I like breaking them._

Heleri looked from the dark-haired Queen to him and back. "Five hundred gold marks."

The smile was beautiful - and terrible. "You have a deal." The green eyes turned back to Ronon, and he glared at her with all the hatred and defiance he had in him.

 _*Buy my body if you will, but you will never have my soul.*_

He wasn't even aware he'd used a psychic thread to cast the words at her until her eyes widened and her smile died.

 _*I don't want your soul.*_ Burning truth and fierce passion in her words, and a disgust that was as painful as a blade in the heart.

Then she gathered her skirts and turned her back on him, striding away from the slave she'd just bought as a hearth-witch purchases meat.

And Ronon watched her go and wondered why he couldn't breathe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Queen might treat these males with tenderness, but a slave was just a slave.

They'd removed his chains, but not the ring of obedience.

They watched him with wary eyes - all but the two women.

They didn't trust him further than they could throw him - and at present, their throwing options were even more limited by the coach in which they travelled to the Territory they called home.

Ronon leaned against the wall, grateful for the cool of the smooth wood beneath his arm and shoulder. His back was still raw, and he had spared the tiniest thread of what little healing Craft he knew to hold his flesh together and stop infection setting in.

He wasn't capable of any more than that, not without his Jewels, and a slave wasn't allowed to use their Jewels - at least, not without punishment. Ronon had had enough of punishment today.

The worst of it was that he had little idea of what these people had in mind for him.

Of their own accord, his eyes travelled across the cabin to the woman who spoke quietly with her companion, unaware of his gaze. His eyes traced the curl of her hair, the fine line of jaw and throat, and the curves of her body, and something in his gut tightened as he responded to her.

It shouldn’t be this way.

In all of seven years, he hadn’t responded to any woman like this; without provocation, without coy teasing, without _safframate_. None of them had called to him like this, brushing their fingers across his emotions and not just his body.

 _You will never have my soul._

He shouldn’t want her - not like this.

Perhaps it was because she wore dark jewels? The polished facets of her Red jewel gleamed at him in the lighting inside the coach. A woman’s psychic strength - especially a Queen’s - appealed to males, both strong and weak, but particularly the strong.

On the other hand, one of the most repellant Queens he’d been forced to serve had worn the Sapphire. She had looked upon Ronon as a challenge and tried to break him. She’d failed.

Psychic strength wasn’t always attractive to Blood males; other factors counted as well.

Yet Ronon couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He couldn’t keep his mind from imagining her hands on his body, touching him. He couldn’t drag his mind away from speculation about how she smelled, of the psychic taste of her surrounding him. And the worst part was that it was only partly physical desire that fuelled his hunger.

He cursed his weakness - the weakness that was an inborn part of every Warlord Prince: the need to serve a Queen who could keep him leashed, yet knew when to let him run free.

She owned him. Had purchased him, had walked away from him, had thought nothing more of him. He had no idea of what she had planned for him, but it couldn’t be good.

And here he was, responding to her as though she was a true Queen who lived by the old ways of the Blood.

As if she’d heard his thought, she rose from her seat and came to stand before him, ushering away the guards who watched him with wary eyes.

“Your back,” she said. “Let me see it.”

Ronon glanced at the two warriors standing mere feet away, their expressions grim. One of them narrowed his eyes and made a quick gesture. _Hurry up._

He began undoing his shirt, peeling the linen from his shoulders with a wince. He’d used a tiny bit of Craft to hold himself together, and another bit to keep the material from sticking to his lacerated back after the whipping, but it wasn’t healed, just no longer oozingly raw.

Fingers touched his shoulder and he flinched without thought. A delicate birdwing brow arched at him in question, and he looked away and let her take over the removal of his shirt.

She moved with a brisk grace, and her hands eased the shirt from his bloody back with more gentleness than was warranted towards a slave. Ronon closed his eyes as her fingers brushed a drying edge here, a growing scab there. He tried not to tense at her touch, but couldn’t help himself.

He was used to pain. The whippings were nothing new, neither were the beatings. And the constant ache of the ring of obedience circling his cock was a humiliation with which he’d lived for seven years. Pain was an old friend.

Hunger was a new enemy.

It seeped through him like banked fire, and he clenched his teeth together as her fingers rested lightly at the base of his spine and she asked for water and herbs to be brought. Her touch should have been cold, like ice, but Ronon could only feel the smooth fingertips, warm against even his hot skin.

He reined in the wanting with iron-clad self-control. Just because she was gentle now meant nothing.

 _I have a need for slaves with spirit._

And the spirit was best preserved with a healthy body.

“Kneel,” she said, exerting light pressure on his arm.

Ronon hesitated, then knelt. Whatever was coming, it couldn’t be worse than he’d already endured.

Silk rustled as she sat down in a chair, and a moment later, one of the guards approached with a bowl of water.

His skin tingled as she cleaned it with water mixed with dried herbs, then grew numb to the pain. The psychic currents in the air shifted and wavered in response to a spell she cast to begin healing his injuries, then darkened and vanished.

Ronon had a moment to wonder how the spell had vanished when he could feel his back still healing, and then her arms slid around his torso.

He flinched again, as startled by her hands as by the curls that had briefly traced his shoulder. But she was only bandaging his back, winding gauze around him in a makeshift bandage. Only. Ronon clenched his teeth again and fought down his body’s reaction to her proximity.

How long had it been since a woman had touched him with tenderness? That was all he was responding to; a woman whose hands weren’t digging into his back, who hadn’t lifted her hand to slap him, who wasn’t intending to use him.

Except that she was.

The spirit was best preserved with a healthy body - and hope.

He had to remember that.

“Done. Sit down in one of the chairs. We’ll be home in a few hours.” With no more words than that, she returned to her seat opposite the other witch, leaving her males to take away the remaining water and herbs.

Ronon climbed to his feet, wondering whether he should put the shirt back on. One of the guards tossed the garment at him. “Your back’s bandanged,” he said. “Put it on. Shouldn’t hurt so bad now.”

He eased it back over his shoulders, and caught the other witch watching him with a measuring gaze. He glared back, and her mouth curved in amusement as she turned back to the Queen.

Unexpected bitterness washed through him as he took a seat and rested his elbows on his knees to avoid aggravating his back wounds. Nothing had changed; he was still a slave, and still owned by a Queen. This one might have a care for his body, but only as long as she found him entertaining.

Movement across the cabin dragged his attention away, but it was only one of the men bringing her a glass of water. Fingers touched, and she reached up and brushed her free hand against his wrist as she smiled up at him and he smiled back. There was loyalty there, running both ways - loyalty and a gentleness that he hadn’t seen in any of the courts in which he’d served back in Belka Territory.

The same gentleness with which she’d touched Ronon when she healed his back.

This Queen cared about the males in her court.

As the man turned to the other witch, the Queen’s gaze flitted across the cabin, taking in all her people. Her eyes came to rest on him and something hardened in her expression. Eyes the colour of midsummer foliage turned to agate, and she turned resolutely back to the brown-skinned witch, now free, and continued speaking without another glance at Ronon.

Bitterness rose up in him again. He squashed it swiftly. He was a slave. What applied to the males in the court didn’t apply to slaves - even in Belka Territory, that had held. So this Queen might treat these males with tenderness, but a slave was just a slave.

Even if her touch had ignited fire along his senses.

Ronon was still a slave.

If Belka had been a nightmare, this new Territory was going to be Hell.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She could do what she liked with him, but she couldn't make him change his nature.

They landed in the new Territory a good hour after sunset, and the outer courtyard was well-lit with torches as they alighted from the coach. People spilled out of the archway to greet them, grooms, servants, and a dog that raced out and hurled itself at her in joyful welcome.

She went down in a puddle of scarlet silk and laughter while her people looked on. Her hand petted the head of the beast, and she allowed it to lick her jaw and throat as enthusiastically as she might have let a lover kiss her.

Ronon paused in the shadows, waiting for someone to take charge of him. This homecoming left a bitter flavour in his mouth, watching the people greet their Queen with delight and enthusiasm.

It confused him. The Queen who’d looked at him with the coldest eyes he’d ever seen in a woman’s face shouldn’t have received such a reception from her people. They should have feared her, not revered her. Yet there was no mistaking their pleasure at her return.

He couldn’t fathom it.

Then the Warlord Prince walked out from beneath the archway and all other matters faded away.

The man was was halfway to his Queen when he noticed Ronon, and his whole focus shifted.

As he met the man’s eyes - probably hazel by daylight, but presently dark as the night around them - Ronon felt the world lurch around him. Violence stirred within him, sharp as any blade, deadly as only a Warlord Prince rising towards the killing edge could be, and unstoppable.

None of the males who’d accompanied the Queen to Belka had been Warlord Princes. Two Warlords, one Prince, and two men who wore jewels but had no caste: all trained guards. Ronon had taken their measure, noted their wariness, and dismissed them in his mind. Their possessiveness towards their Queen hadn’t touched him at all.

Only the presence of another Warlord Prince would produce such a reaction in him.

Territorial and aggressive by nature, Warlord Princes were a law unto themselves; Blood males who could only be restrained by violence or by love, and who didn’t like sharing the females in their lives.

To the man who’d just entered the outer courtyard, Ronon was a rival, dangerous and to be dealt with accordingly. And blood would be shed to prove who was the dominant male: it was no less than they were, a part of who and what they’d been born. Slave or free, dark or light jewelled, no Warlord Prince could deny his nature.

And Ronon certainly didn’t intend to.

He took in the lean, toned warrior’s build, the proud set of the jaw, the Sapphire ring that gleamed on one finger, and felt the growl of enmity rise in his throat as the man approached. He might be a slave, might still be held by the ring of obedience, but he would give this male of her court a fight to remember, if it killed him.

They could break his body, but they would not break his spirit.

And then she was there, touching the other male’s arm with one hand. “John.”

Her tone of voice commanded the Warlord Prince’s attention, and he looked at her for a long moment, the set of his jaw tense. Moments passed, during which most of the other people in the courtyard seemed to drift away into the night. Ronon hardly paid attention to the guards who’d drawn their weapons and were now holding them at his throat.

He was watching the Queen.

The other man stiffened, and sent one flashing glance at Ronon, then nodded and turned his back on both Queen and rival, returning to the house with all the feral grace of a tiger. He sent one look towards the witch who’d accompanied them in the coach, and received a swift shake of the head in reply. He stalked off, his anger still plain. Whatever his requests of Queen and witch, he’d been denied both.

Ronon grinned wolfishly, ignoring the envy that coiled in his throat, making a lump that was difficult to swallow around.

Then he looked back at the Queen, now watching him, and his smile faded. In the darkness, by the flickering torches, it was difficult to make out her expression, but he stared back, instinctively knowing that now was not the time to back down. He was what he was, even bound by the ring of obedience, and his hackles were still up, ignited by the other male’s aggression and fuelled by his own nature.

She could do what she liked with him, but she couldn’t make him change his nature.

At length, she nodded. “Come.”

Ronon tensed, shocked at the direct address. She hadn’t told the guards to bring him, she hadn’t made it an order. Her tone clearly said she expected to come, but it was common sense, not an imperative.

And it confused him.

Still, he retained enough sense in his skull to follow after her. He didn’t want to stand out here all night.

They crossed the outer courtyard and went into a long passageway, lit by witchlights. At the other end of the passageway was an inner courtyard surrounded on all sides by the house and leading up to a large set of double doors.

A servant greeted them at the front door and she paused to ask him something. Ronon heard the words ‘Steward’ and ‘office’ and figured that there would be some accounting done by the end of the night, especially when her Steward realised that she’d spent five hundred gold marks on a stubborn slave.

Five hundred gold marks was a lot to pay for a slave, even a Red-jewelled Warlord Prince.

Her conversation with the servant finished and she glanced back at him. “Come.”

And off she set once again, one hand outstretched to scratch the head of the dog that now danced by her side, writhing in joy at her presence.

The brown-skinned witch who had been in the coach moved past him, giving him one querying gaze before she followed after her Queen. As she passed him, Ronon caught the faintest hint of her psychic scent and fought the urge to press himself back against the wall away from her.

A natural Black Widow.

They were rare in Belka Territory, powerful witches capable of weaving tangled webs - spells that could destroy a man’s mind, or tear apart his soul. Males feared them - and rightly so. Ronon had seen the results of a Black Widow’s spell on a man who’d failed to please her. He wasn’t the only man who’d had nightmares for weeks after, either.

After that, Ronon had stayed well clear of any Black Widows in the courts where he’d slaved.

The castes of the others in the coach were easy to tell; but his senses had told him she was nothing more than a witch who wore Jewels. Had she disguised her true nature? And if so, why?

As if she’d sensed his fear, she turned and smiled at him, a slightly wicked smile of pleasure at his shock. Then she turned and continued on.

Ronon shivered slightly and focused his attention on the Queen whose scarlet dress swirled around her slender figure like fire as she walked ahead. After a moment, he found it easy to ignore the Black Widow who trailed her amusement like perfume, the guards who followed behind him.

The woman who held his attention was the one whose authority here was unchallenged.

She led them to a room where a Prince sat behind a desk, muttering to himself as he went through the reports of the estate.

“Lady?”

“Carson,” she said. “We have a new addition to the household.”

Carson turned his blue gaze on Ronon. “Oh no. How much?”

“Five hundred gold marks.”

The Steward stared at her. “Have you lost your mind, Elizabeth? Five hundred gold marks?” He frowned slightly and turned to Ronon. “Not meaning to be rude, Prince, but...five hundred...” He turned back to the Queen who had crouched down, the better to fondle the ears of her hound. “In the name of the Darkness, why?”

“He has spirit.”

“And we have a household budget!” Carson ran a hand over his eyes, the picture of an exasperated Steward.

“Then take it off my personal expenditure,” she said. “I won’t buy any more evening gowns for the year.” And she smiled mischievously, like a child who thought they’d outwitted a parent.

“You won’t be buying any more evening gowns for _two_ years at that price!” Carson retorted. “And what will the First Circle have to say about that?” He looked to the Black Widow who had settled herself into one of the armchairs in the room and was watching the argument, clearly amused.

“The males would drag you out and purchase the clothes for you,” she said to the Queen. “And they would pick the items that you most dislike and would insist upon you wearing them.”

“I’m the Queen.”

“And they are First Circle,” said the Black Widow.

Elizabeth winced. “They would, wouldn’t they?”

Ronon watched the whole exchange, more than a little bemused. The man’s apology to him had been startling, denoting a respect that no Steward would give a mere slave. And their conversation had been casual, hardly what might have been expected of an aristo Queen and one of the most powerful men in her court.

That they were arguing like this in front of him - a slave - made no sense.

He felt like interrupting, demanding to know what he was doing here. He knew better than to try.

“Remind me why I took this position again?” Carson asked.

“Because the running of the estate might have otherwise fallen to Rodney,” said the Black Widow, smiling.

“Teyla,” Carson warned. He turned his attention to Ronon and studied him with a sigh. “Sheppard’s not going to like him.”

“John’s already met him,” the Queen said, her voice going flat.

“Ah. Well. That solves one problem at least. And creates a dozen more.” The Steward regarded her and the still-bouncing dog. “Elizabeth, do you remember what I said about that beast?”

She grinned and stood. “I’ll take him out. Teyla, when you’re finished here?”

And with one last, measuring look at Ronon, she left, the dog faithfully following her steps. One of the guards followed her out and the door closed behind her.

“What do you know about this court?”

Ronon tore his eyes away from the door through which she’d vanished, leaving him in a room with the three people: Steward, Black Widow and Warlord guard. “Atlantis Territory. She’s the Queen.”

“The Lady Elizabeth Weir, Territory Queen of Atlantis,” the Steward said. “I’m Carson Beckett and the Steward of the Court.”

Ronon remained silent, waiting. He could sense the question implicit in the man’s demeanour, but he wasn’t going to answer until directly addressed.

The Steward frowned at his stubbornness. “Name?”

“Ronon Dex.”

“Jewel?”

He stared for a moment and the other man grew impatient.

“You do have jewels don’t you?”

Ronon did. But he’d never been asked to name them before. “Red.”

An eyebrow went up. “Sheppard’s _really_ not going to like you. Skills?”

He stiffened, too aware of the amusement emanating from the Black Widow over in the chair. “I was trained as a warrior.” That much was true.

But Carson eyed him. “Belka Territory?”

“Yes.”

“Belka Territory wouldn’t let a slave touch a weapon.” While the man looked mild, his voice was diamond-hard. “What else?”

“General flunkey. Whipping boy.” He paused. “Pleasure slave.”

Ronon wasn’t sure what he expected from the man. Derision, perhaps? He certainly didn’t expect the tight flash of sympathy from the man. Still, the Steward only nodded and looked him over, the blue eyes resting briefly on his groin. “I imagine you wore a ring of obedience, then?”

Wore? Ronon nearly laughed out loud. “Still wearing it.”

There was an exasperated noise from the chair behind Ronon. He didn’t turn as the Black Widow spoke. “I presumed they’d removed it, Carson. Elizabeth must have the controlling ring.”

“A controlling ring.” The Steward winced. “Lovely.” He looked back at Ronon, studying the man, and now there was a measuring look in the blue gaze. “They whipped you, didn’t they? Take off the shirt.” When Ronon hesitated, the man raised his eyebrows. “Would you like Teyla to undress you?” Carson glanced over at Black Widow. She glared back at Carson before her eyes came to rest, neutrally, on Ronon.

Exactly how the Steward had read his discomfort with the Black Widow, Ronon didn’t know, but he looked away from the intent darkness of those eyes and stripped, pulling off his shirt with careful attention to the scabs now half-healed. The pain was still there, but it was nothing more than a background ache. And even that would shortly be gone.

The Steward came out from behind his desk and circled Ronon, regarding him with the calm, thoughtful gaze of a man used to appraising the value of goods. “Your work?” He addressed Teyla, gesturing at Ronon’s back.

“The Queen’s ministrations, my spell.”

Which meant the Black Widow’s jewels were darker than Ronon’s. That explained her presence in the room at least. Between her and the guard, Ronon was well-covered in case he thought to try anything.

Carson nodded. “Good work. Remind me to tell her.”

Ronon paused as the bandages about his body were vanished and straightened slowly. His back ached a little, but the wounds were healing - he could feel the scabs forming.

“How does it feel?” It took him a moment to realise that the Steward was talking about his back.

“Sore.” Like he’d taken twenty-five lashes.

The man gave him a wary look for the terseness. “We have a Healer in the court, but she won’t be able to look at that until tomorrow.” The man gave him another appraising look. “Strip.”

“What?” Here?

“Do you want to wear the ring of obedience after all?” The man was blunt. “Strip.”

Ronon stared at the man. He felt as though the ground had been yanked out from beneath him. They were going to take the ring off him?

Carson looked at the woman in the chair. “Teyla?”

There was no way Ronon was letting the Black Widow lay her hands on him. A Queen was one thing, but a Black Widow?

He stripped off his boots, vanishing them as he took them off, and just vanished his trousers completely, leaving him standing naked in the room.

From behind him, the Black Widow’s amusement intensified, the guard momentarily stared before regaining his impassivity, but the Steward merely gave him a single sweeping glance from head to toe, and turned towards the door as it opened.

“Lady--” Carson stopped as a Prince entered, his eyes firmly on the book he held open, one finger pressed into the paper page.

“Teyla? Teyla, have you looked at the order of ingredients for the energy spell? I think it’s wrong. Well, no, it’s definitely wrong because it’s not working and I need you to come and test it for me right now.”

As the lack of response registered he looked up, and regarded Ronon with astonishment. “You’re not Teyla.”

“Observant, Rodney,” Carson snapped. “Where’s Elizabeth?”

The Prince looked back at him, surprised. “I don’t know where she is. Why would I know?”

“I sent for Elizabeth.”

“Oh, well, I can’t help you there.” The man peered at Ronon. “So this is the new guy?” He looked him up and down. “Sheppard isn’t going to like him.”

“Sheppard’s already met him,” the Steward said.

“Oh, well, I’m sure _that_ went well. Is that why he’s standing naked in the middle of your office? Or are there things you’d like to tell us about?”

Ronon was tempted to laugh at the brief flash of exasperation on the Steward’s face. “Rodney, what are you doing here?”

“I came looking for Teyla. Oh, there she is.” Rodney crossed the room, completely ignoring Ronon. “Teyla, this is important.”

“It always is,” she replied. “However, at this time I am busy. As you can see.”

“Busy?” Rodney said. “What? Watching him? He’s not going to give any--”

In a single fluid motion Ronon turned and kicked Rodney’s feet out from beneath him, trusting to the Prince’s Craft skills to stop him from hitting the ground. He felt rather than saw the guard lunge forward, and dodged the blow that should have landed in his belly, neatly sidestepping the man. He caught the man’s shoulder and belt and tossed him heels-over-head to the floor beyond the couch.

He grinned as he crouched, turning to face the next threat. This wasn’t the killing edge, just the natural aggression of a Warlord Prince channelled into action. It was reckless, it was dangerous, and it was going to get his balls fried as soon as they remembered he still wore the ring of obedience and their Queen had the controlling ring...

A second later, he was caught in a vice-like grip and shoved up against an invisible wall. A knife dug gently into his throat and the dark eyes of the Black Widow watched him from beyond the silvery blade. “I would not advise trying that again.” Her voice was low and husky, and yet dangerously cold; and the look in her eyes said that she would go up against a Warlord Prince in his prime without hesitation.

The look in her eyes said that she would go up against a Warlord Prince in his prime without hesitation and win.

“What is happening here?” The Queen’s voice rang through the room in authoritative question. “Teyla?”

Ronon tensed but didn’t dare turn his head.

Teyla vanished the knife and stepped back, “A slight upset. That is all.” The flashing glance sent his way warned him that he would perpetrate the statement or risk worse things than a knife at his throat.

At this moment, he wasn’t sure he cared.

Elizabeth was in the room.

Maybe it was the instincts he’d roused by lashing out at the Prince, but he was hyperaware of her presence, of her floral scent, of her irritation at being called back. She crossed the room to Carson, ignoring Ronon, and he felt a momentary pique at her complete lack of interest in him.

“He hit me!” The Prince down on the floor whined - yes, _whined._ There was no other word for it.

“Good for him,” the Steward said sharply.

“He’s a Warlord Prince, Rodney,” said the Queen, shooting her Steward a quelling glance while the Black Widow hauled the man up off the floor. “You should be grateful he didn’t do more than just hit you.”

Pleased by the acceptance of his nature, Ronon grinned wolfishly at the Prince, whose eyes narrowed. His step forward was stopped by a single outstretched hand of the Black Widow and a warning glance.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth had turned back to Carson. “You needed me here?”

“Yes,” said the Steward briskly. “He’s wearing a ring of obedience. You’ll have to take it off.”

Ronon’s breath caught in his throat.

“ _I’ll_ have to take it off?” The emphasis in the sentence was wrong, but that hardly registered with Ronon. What registered was the panic that flitted over her features, a momentary fear that she mastered within moments. “Why can’t someone else do it?”

A look of patient exasperation crossed his face. “Because you’re the Queen.” He paused. “And you bought him.”

She looked over at Ronon, and lifted her chin. He saw her eyes take in his naked form, a quick sweep of appraisal. Then she tugged the controlling ring from her finger and crossed the short expanse of carpet to stand before him.

Her hand touched his chest, resting lightly on his breastbone, and a light psychic probe brushed across his shields and his inner barriers. Ronon felt the tingling softness of that not-quite-caress all over his skin and tasted the psychic scent of her in the air around them.

It was difficult to fight the instincts that urged him to slip his hands around her waist and open up his inner barriers to her, but he did. He fought it by reminding himself of the look that had been in her eyes when she bought him - chattel exchanging hands.

He wished his senses would be reminded.

Then she touched him, her fingers brushing over the hair at his groin and slipping around the ring that circled the base of his cock.

Ronon quivered, painfully aware of her closeness, of the ageless wisdom of her eyes, the vivid dark of her hair around the pale curves of her face. He was terrifyingly sensitive to the fingertip that brushed his balls so lightly, to the woman who stood just outside the barriers he had up to protect his inner self.

Then all that was lost as his vision swam, dizzyingly.

He didn’t understand what it was - not immediately, but a moment later, he felt her hand slip into his, the faintest caressing touch. And there was no pain. For the first time in seven years, the near-constant buzz of pain that the ring of obedience had produced in his balls was gone. He drew in a shuddering breath, felt the slight weight of her hand still resting on his chest. But when his sight cleared, she was already turning away and he was holding two small, heavy items in his left hand.

She said something to the Steward that he didn’t hear, took the Prince out of the room with her, and left him standing in the middle of the office, naked and free.

The door slipped shut behind her and he heard the latch click as he looked down at the things in his hand: the large gold ring of obedience and the smaller, delicate controlling ring that had made a misery of the last seven years.

He glanced up. The Black Widow was looking at him with dark eyes that held no leavening of watchfulness, but which were, at least, not hostile.

And Carson paused beside him, the blue eyes open and quiet as he addressed Ronon.

“Welcome to Atlantis.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She had known her decision to be right from the moment he cast back at her that she could purchase his body, but his soul remained his own

Elizabeth felt...restless. Itchy beneath her skin.

In contrast, Teyla slouched in the high-backed chair, stretching her legs out and crossing them at the ankles. She looked utterly relaxed and Elizabeth envied her the casual pose.

It had been an unsettling day. First the journey to Belka, then the negotiations, then the return trip. Belka Territory had been very different in Elizabeth’s imagination, and the difference had grated on her nerves all day.

 _Be honest with yourself,_ she told herself quietly. _It’s not Belka Territory that disturbs you but the man you brought back._

“He is wary and suspicious, which is no surprise,” said the Black Widow calmly, continuing the conversation which had been going only moments before. “I gather he has been a slave for many years.”

“At least five,” Elizabeth murmured, stirring the tea in her cup. “Probably more.” The hatred in his gaze had been like a blow, no less than the message he’d sent her: _You will never have my soul_.

However long he’d been enslaved, brutalised with the ring around his cock, Elizabeth didn’t know. How he’d survived it, she couldn’t imagine. But she’d looked into him and seen a man who clung to his own honour and would see it taken from him over his own dead body.

He deserved much more than slavery.

“Well, he is now free,” said Teyla. “Although how he will adjust to the court is another matter.” She set her chin in her hand and regarded her friend. “Were you thinking of taking him into your service?”

“I...don’t know.” Elizabeth paused and struggled to fight down the blush that rose in her cheeks. She cursed the paleness of her complexion as Teyla peered curiously at her. “After everything he’s been through, I don’t think he’ll want to serve in a court.”

 _Especially not mine._

Teyla looked surprised. “He is a Blood male, Elizabeth - a dark-jewelled Warlord Prince. They need a Queen to serve.”

“There are other Queens in Atlantis,” Elizabeth pointed out. “He has a choice.”

“But only one other with dark Jewels,” said Teyla, reasonably. “And you are attracted to him.”

The statement was matter-of-fact, and Elizabeth grimaced. Teyla rarely hedged around matters.

“Has Carson been going on about the Consort’s position again?”

“He is correct,” Teyla said, albeit with more gentleness than usual. “You have been without a Consort for two years. And in that time, you have only called upon the services of a male of the court twice.”

Feeling more than a little picked upon, Elizabeth set her cup down on the table and resisted the urge to snap that it was two more males than Teyla had called upon in the last two years.

Of course, it wasn’t Teyla’s court.

“I cared about Simon--”

“Simon left your service two years ago, Elizabeth. You are a Queen with a woman’s desires and a court full of men, most of whom would be only too happy to be called to your bed. This...this Ronon Dex is new, and if he is not court-trained, he is aware of the laws and Protocols of the Blood - and you are aware of him as you have not been of any man since Simon.”

Elizabeth wished her body hadn’t been so swift to respond to Ronon Dex - or that Teyla wasn’t so observant. And she hoped that the Warlord Prince hadn’t picked up on her interest: she had kept her response as controlled as was possible at the end of a long and tiring day.

“You _have_ been speaking with Carson.”

“He _is_ the Steward of the Court,” Teyla pointed out. “And I am correct. A Warlord Prince will want to serve a Queen capable of handling him. You have bought him from slavery. That incurs a debt, even if only in his own mind, that he will wish to pay back by whatever means lies open to him.”

Elizabeth knew she didn’t have to explain that there was no need for repayment. She’d seen a Warlord Prince with the potential for honourable service, abused and suffering, and her instincts screamed that he should be set free. She’d paid the price without asking, content to allow Heleri to believe that she wanted him for cruelty, willing to allow Ronon to believe the same.

She didn’t want ‘repayment’ from him.

Of course, Teyla knew that, already. The person that Elizabeth had to convince was the Warlord Prince who knew nothing of her or her court; only what he would trust of the Protocols that dictated the interaction between the castes of the Blood.

“He is...handsome,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “Well-built.” The other woman grinned and Elizabeth held up a hand. “Don’t start.”

“I said nothing.”

“You didn’t need to. He is attractive - and you know it.”

Teyla just sat there with a smile hovering about her lips and Elizabeth tossed the empty teacup at her, piqued.

With a laugh, Teyla caught the cup midair, holding it aloft with a thread of Grey power before returning it to Elizabeth’s saucer. “He has a warrior’s instincts and the body to match. Whatever they set him to do in Belka, he was originally trained as a guard.”

Elizabeth thought of the sharply-defined musculature of the naked man; from shoulders and biceps, to chest and abdomen, to the clear definition of thighs and calves. She had looked and courtesy had required her to touch him to remove the ring of obedience. She could have done it without laying a finger upon him, but it seemed discourteous not to afford him the honesty of contact.

However, the heat she felt from him - the heat she had felt in her own body, pooling between her thighs - that had been unexpected.

“Sorry?” Elizabeth was jolted from her memory, suddenly aware that Teyla had asked a question she hadn’t even heard.

This time, Teyla didn’t hide her smile, and Elizabeth flushed harder as the other woman repeated, “I said that John might find him an interesting opponent in the yards.”

“If they don’t kill each other first.” She remembered the intent look in John’s eyes as he came out to greet them. She was almost surprised he’d obeyed her at all - he’d been furious when she announced that she was going into Belka Territory without either him or Caldwell to protect her.

There was good reason to leave the Warlord Princes behind, though; they were too volatile, too edged to take into a Territory that was, if not precisely an enemy, certainly not a friend. Two Warlords, a Prince, and another two Blood males were sufficient guard force to take into Belka, and when she first saw the ‘entertainment’ that her host had provided for her, she was glad she’d left the Warlord Princes behind. Even she could not have contained them, then.

She had barely managed to contain John when he was faced with a rival Warlord Prince.

“Have you seen John since we returned?”

Teyla shook her head. “Other than his appearance in the courtyard, no. He will not be happy, wherever he is.”

Elizabeth felt she could safely guess where her First Escort would be found, but she said nothing to Teyla. The other woman would find out soon enough. “He’s still angry that I didn’t take him into Belka.”

“We would now be at war with Belka if you had,” Teyla said. “If not over his actions, then over him.”

“I’ll tell John you said that.”

“He knows it already.” Teyla leaned her head back against one of the side wings of the chair. “At the least, Ronon Dex will remain in the house as a guest for a week, then he is free to make of himself what he desires. Seek out employment, earn a wage, or court a woman he likes.” A stealthy smile crept across her face.

Elizabeth wondered why she distrusted the smile so much. “What?”

“I am simply thinking that there may be some competition for his attention among the women in the villages,” Teyla said. “He is...distinctive.”

The question slipped out before she could censor it. “Not interested yourself?”

The answer was immediate and not over-definite. “No. He distrusts the Hourglass coven.” Teyla was matter-of-fact about it; she had become accustomed to the suspicion and concern over her abilities.

“He’ll learn to deal with it if he’s going to stay in Atlantis,” Elizabeth said firmly. Her mother had been of the Hourglass and while Elizabeth had no training in the coven, she respected their work and their skills. And Teyla was a friend, First Circle and trusted.

Teyla’s eyes opened to look at Elizabeth. “And if he isn’t?”

“Then he’ll learn to deal with it anyway.”

The other woman smiled. “So you _will_ consider him in service, then?”

Elizabeth paused. She supposed she would, but it would depend on Ronon Dex himself and his own decisions. She suspected that he’d been a slave too long to give over the choices of his life to anyone else. “Maybe. We’ll see how he copes with the court tomorrow.”

Teyla laughed and stood, stretching. “Very well. Carson also wished me to remind you that Lady Sora is to visit us the day after tomorrow.”

“Yes, I remember.” Elizabeth grimaced a little. “I don’t suppose you’d care to look a few days into the future?”

“Chaos, trouble, and difficulty,” Teyla replied. “I need no tangled web to show me that.” She twinkled at her friend as she picked up the books she was borrowing from Elizabeth’s library. “Sleep well. Dream of handsome former slaves.”

Elizabeth made a sour expression at Teyla. For that, she wasn’t going to warn Teyla who she’d likely find waiting in her rooms. “Get out,” she said with good-natured disgust.

After the door had shut, Elizabeth sighed to herself and poked her feet out from beneath the old flannel gown she wore to bed.

As she climbed into her own bed, extinguishing the witchflame candles with a thought, she considered the problem of Ronon Dex.

Purchasing Ronon from Lady Heleri’s court had been risky for more reasons than merely the deception of another Queen. Not all people made the successful transition from slavery to freedom. Without the restraining ring and with no sense of the Protocols that defined the Blood, some males set their lives to abuse, passing on the cruelty that they had known in the courts.

And yet, she had seen the spark of rebellion in him, a Warlord Prince with honour denied. And she had known her decision to be right from the moment he cast back at her that she could purchase his body, but his soul remained his own.

He had spoken the truth although he didn’t realise it.

Elizabeth had bought his body free from the Belkans, but she wouldn’t lay claim to his soul. He was his own man, free to do what he wished. She wouldn’t stand in his way.

The last remnants of witchlight dimmed and faded, and the night - and sleep - claimed her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were Warlord Princes, dangerous, aggressive, and uncompromising. They would break bone if given the chance.

He saw the wary looks the other men gave him as he walked out into the yard in the cool light of dawn.

“Up early, I see,” said a cool voice at his shoulder.

Ronon whirled to see the Black Widow emerging from the doorway behind him and fought down the urge to back away. He would challenge any male here, but a witch who could shatter his mind with a tangled web was a very different matter. “Are you watching me?”

Her amusement grew. “No.” She stepped past him, the loose cut of her trousers flowing lightly around her form and hinting at muscular legs beneath. Black Widow she might be, but she was clearly not indolent. “Are you intending to join in with the morning training?” Dark eyes regarded him without ploy or coyness, just a direct question.

He sensed the mood of the practice yards changing as he stood there, looking down at her. He knew that somewhere out in the array of men, another Warlord Prince was approaching, coming to make his presence and possession known. That coming storm gave him the audacity to cover his fear, flash a grin at her, and ask, “Are you?”

One eyebrow quirked. “Of course.”

She made it sound so natural.

Ronon looked her over with the eye of a trained warrior. She was small and trim, her arms were lean and well-muscled and the look in her eyes warned him that she’d be a dangerous opponent - as if being a dark-jewelled Black Widow wasn’t enough to make a woman dangerous.

At least she had a sense of humour.

“Teyla.” Both of them looked over at the man who came up beside her, feet planted wide, his hands clenched around a pair of unbladed sticks.

Ronon met the flat, hard gaze of the Warlord Prince who’d tried to confront him last night. “Prince.”

The man eyed him. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. John Sheppard.”

“Ronon Dex.” He measured up the other Warlord Prince, well aware that he was being similarly summed up.

“I invited Ronon to join in with the weapons practise,” Teyla said, ignoring the undercurrents between the two men. “He was trained as a guard at the last court he served in.”

He was impressed with the distinction she made between the court he’d served in and the courts he’d slaved in. His slave history might be common knowledge after last night’s interview, it might not. But she had effectively given Sheppard notice that any other commentary on Ronon’s background was unacceptable.

Whether Sheppard would be ruled by that was another matter.

However, the other male only gave him a challenging look. “Is that so? You won’t mind sparring against some of the men, then.” And placing his hand firmly in the small of Teyla’s back, Sheppard drew the woman back towards the main group, herding her away from Ronon.

Ronon’s mouth quirked slightly as he watched. She didn’t object to the handling, which meant Sheppard was trusted, but neither did she fully comply with his directive. Within two steps, she had slipped away from his touch and turned back to Ronon.

“Can you fight with unbladed sticks?”

He grinned, pleased by the way Sheppard turned with open dislike on his face. “I do better with bladed ones.”

“We only use the unbladed ones in training,” Teyla said and smiled. “But I’m sure that you will be more than comfortable with them, Prince.”

She wasn’t being ironic, either, which Ronon found unusual, along with the fact that she wasn’t looking him over with the openly measuring gaze he was accustomed to receiving from witches. It intrigued him a little, made him curious - almost as curious as he was to see her limbering up with the men, exchanging quips and comments with some, but being ignored by others.

Accepted by some, but marked apart.

Ronon knew how that felt.

An older male walked onto the field and began organising the pairings for training, one against the other.

Ronon noted that Teyla moved towards Sheppard even before the man who was probably the Master of the Guard set them against each other, and that the Warlord Prince made a comment that earned him a sharp, amused glance before they took up positions in a separate enclosure.

He watched as the men began facing off against each other, curious to see what the Master of the Guard would say to him. And curious to know what was being said or thought of him. There were enough men who were measuring him up, surreptitiously or otherwise. He suspected they were taking stock of him as a warrior, as a Warlord Prince, and as another male in the court.

Here and there he heard whispers, mutters that carried to his ears on the breeze: ‘slave’, ‘not a man’, ‘dangerous’, ‘dishonourable’. He let them build up, cold crystals of rage that collected inside, fuel to his movements and the anger he would let loose against them.

The Steward had informed Ronon that he had a week to determine what he wished to do for himself, during which time he’d be a guest in the household. The old laws and Protocol held sway here: if Ronon had trouble with anyone, then he was to come to see Beckett and not take matters into his own hands.

Nothing had been said about taking matters into weapons practice, though.

He sensed the approach of another man, and turned to meet the faded blue gaze of the Master of the Guard .

The Warlord Prince studied Ronon from a few yards away, his gaze wary but without the challenge Ronon had received from Sheppard.

“Ronon Dex?”

“Yes.”

“Beckett said you might turn up,” the man said, his voice timbre low and deep. “Steven Caldwell. Weapons?”

“War-blades, staves, and Jewel.” He saw the nod of approval the man gave him at the answer.

“Jewel strength?”

“Red.”

Dark brows rose. “Interesting. You any good at fighting?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t going to make modest protestations.

“Good, you can start with Lorne over there.” Caldwell turned and roared, “Lorne!”

Lorne turned out to be one of the Warlords who’d been in the coach the previous evening, a few years older than Ronon, built tall and solid and confident. He eyed Ronon with caution but no fear, sure in his own fighting abilities. “Prince.”

“Lord.”

That was all the pleasantries they exchanged before the Master of the Guard set them sparring. Ten minutes if they could last that long, otherwise they were to pick themselves up from the dirt and start over again.

Ronon watched his opponent carefully, choosing not to exchange quips or insults the way others were. In a real battle, there was no time for witty repartee between opponents and barely enough time to react to the enemy’s moves. And the Warlord had confidence in his own skills, he just didn’t have enough skill - not against Ronon.

He wasn’t sensing any animosity or resentment from the man; and he couldn’t feel any dislike or distaste for being set up against a slave. So he was nice; he used the cold rage inside him sparingly, only allowing his blows to take on the slightest edge.

Two minutes later, Lorne was picking himself up with a shake and a smile that was only half-grudging. “I guess we should be glad that you didn’t decide to fight us last night.”

“Guess you should.” Ronon bared his teeth.

To give the Warlord his due, he went back in with good will - and some new moves. This time, Ronon took a strike on the arm before delivering his opponent into the dirt.

Several of the other males had paused to watch Ronon spar, the Master of the Guard included. The third time Lorne landed on his butt, he shook his head and reached a hand up with a rueful smile. Ronon hauled him up, relieved that the Warlord wasn’t harbouring any bad feelings about being beaten.

“You’re good. Where’d you learn?”

The compliment was welcome, the question wasn’t. “In a war,” was all he said as the bad memories rose in him, thick enough to choke. He left it at that.

A quick, intent study, and the other man nodded, accepting that Ronon didn’t want to talk about it now.

“Nothing teaches like the real thing,” Caldwell observed from the side. “Are you still good to fight, Dex?”

He gave a simple nod, looking around at the handful of men who were still fighting in their pairs, unwilling to allow their opponent to get the better of them. Then he saw the woman and the man sparring in a separate enclosure.

Sheppard had some good moves on him, swift and vicious with the edge that a Warlord Prince brought to the fray. But the witch was holding him at bay, no less intense, and with a few moves of her own that compensated for her lack of height and build.

The savagery with which they danced was mesmerising, passion and violence that was at the heart of every Warlord Prince. Ronon felt drawn to it, both curious and challenged.

“They’ve gone overtime again,” said Caldwell, exasperated. “Time!”

In near-perfect synchronisation, their staves slowed, came to rest in front of them, held. There was a gleam of laughter from hazel eye to dark before they bowed solemnly to each other.

“Sheppard, do you have enough energy to go up against Dex?”

Sheppard gave him a long, measuring look. Ronon wasn’t sure if it was arrogance or honesty that marked the answer. “Sure.”

Teyla moved to the edge of the enclosure, passing Sheppard as she did so. Standing at the gate, Ronon saw her hand brush across the other man’s forearm in a light caress, saw the other man turn with heat in his eyes, quickly masked.

If she was aware of what she’d incited in the Warlord Prince, she ignored it and vaulted neatly over the barrier, leaving Sheppard to look to Ronon and bare his teeth in challenge.

Ronon entered the enclosure through the gate and closed it behind him. Then, ignoring Sheppard for a moment, he paced the width of the enclosure, measuring the space with his walk. Once he had that, he balanced on the balls of his feet and made himself ready for the attack.

The first attack was a flurry of blows, swift and uncompromising; Ronon deflected them, letting free the instincts he’d kept chained up in slavery.

What he hadn’t been able to bring out against the Warlord, he had no qualms about bringing out against this Warlord Prince. Sheppard would be able to take it, and if not...

He struck fast and hard, watched the austere expression tense as the other man reassessed the situation and adjusted his technique accordingly. Blows to the right and the left were blocked from the left and the right. They circled each other, attuned to their enemy, psychic tendrils reaching out to gain any tactical advantage against the other.

Like the previous night where they had come unexpectedly upon each other, their instincts rose in lethal volatility. This was a dance at the heart of what and who they were, and Ronon felt the other man’s anger and elation in the psychic currents that swirled around them, freed to impale itself on the vicious nature of a Warlord Prince.

They slammed up against each other, using more than just the staves to attack. By unspoken consent, Jewels were left out of the equation, but everything else was fair game.

Sheppard lashed out with one leg, and shoved Ronon back. Ronon ducked, turned, and blocked the follow-up blow, feeling his muscles burn at the contact.

Ronon wasn’t so involved in the fight that he failed to notice the delicate psychic scent that began permeating the air of the yards. _Her_ psychic scent. He’d had something to prove before; now he had someone to impress. A Queen with a psychic scent that drove him wild. It aroused him, driving his instincts higher, harder.

No pulled blows, no consideration for weakness. They were Warlord Princes, dangerous, aggressive, and uncompromising. They would break bone if given the chance.

They weren’t given the chance.

He went in for a blow that was just short of lethal.

He received a blow that sent him sprawling - but the blow wasn’t Sheppard’s. Phantom fingers pushed him back in powerful feminine Craft, while, across the enclosure, Sheppard was also rigid, held in the anger of the Queen he served.

Slender hands rested at her sides, she had no need of physical strength; not with the gleam of the Red Jewel at her throat. “Do I want to know what’s happening here?”

The Master of the Guard had balls - Ronon gave him that. He managed not to flinch as he met the cold gaze of an angry Queen. “Morning training, Lady.”

“It looks more like morning slaughter to me,” she said. Her gaze turned from one warrior to the other, and Ronon tried not to flinch beneath her gaze. Queen’s rage was a terrifying thing. “This stops, now. You are not enemies and you won’t try to make enemies of each other, either.”

The invisible hands faded from Ronon’s skin. he rubbed at the flesh of his throat as she turned on Caldwell and this time the man flinched. “And Prince, you should know better than to set two Warlord Princes up against each other.”

“Yes, Lady.”

The Queen swept one terrifying look over the whole group, and there wasn’t a man who could look her in the eye for more than a second. Then she turned on her heel, took two strides away, and turned back.

Her anger was still cold enough to send chills down Ronon’s spine as she looked from him to Sheppard. “Prince Sheppard, Prince Dex, I wish to see both of you after breakfast. And when I do, I want to see both of you whole and capable of walking. Is that understood?”

It was understood.

And she strode away, the loose trousers doing little to disguise the easy sway of her walk or her innate femininity.

Even in anger, she was exquisite.

Ronon watched her go, then caught John Sheppard’s rueful thought, sent along a Sapphire spear-thread. _*It’s not generally a good idea to get her mad.*_

 _*I can see why.*_

Caldwell coughed lightly. “And that,” he said, looking around the yard when the Queen had gone inside, “is why we thank the Darkness that males are the warriors.”

He split them up again, harrying the warriors back to their man-on-man fights - or, in the case of the Black Widow - the man-on-woman fights. The training only went a little longer, with Caldwell pinpointing specific issues for specific warriors and watching the others.

“You’re good,” Caldwell said at the end of the training session. The older Warlord Prince had come around to look at the two men he’d set to train against Ronon, and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “Beckett said you might stick around.”

“Thinking,” said Ronon. “Only arrived last night.”

“Which explains the audience to see the Queen.” Blue eyes regarded Ronon sharply. “Have you ever been in service before?”

“Once.” At Caldwell’s look, he qualified. “Province Queen.”

“What happened?”

Ronon paused, wary of giving the other man any leverage against him. When Caldwell looked up from collecting the staves together, he just said. “A war.”

“Ambition or politics?”

“They’re not the same?”

He received a huff of amusement in return and began copying Caldwell, tying up a bundle of staves for carrying in.

“Did you get any warrior training while you were in Belka Territory?” At Ronon’s glare, the older man shrugged. “Don’t be prickly, Prince. Beckett gave me the basics of your history so I’d get the information without it going through too many others first.” Caldwell waved a hand at the retreating groups of men. “Most of these men know that you came back with the Queen from Belka. They know that you were a slave and she bought your contract. News travels around here whether in coven or in court.

“Frankly, I don’t care if she took you out of Belka because you were a pretty face or a hard cock. But you’re a damned good fighter - and you know it. A court can always do with more good warriors.”

Which was true, but the tone of voice gave Ronon pause. “Going to war sometime soon?”

He was careful to keep his voice neutral, but Caldwell gave him a long hard look before answering in measured tones. “No, but we might be at war before too long.”

That seemed to be all the explanation the older man was going to give Ronon. Caldwell returned to the sticks he was bundling, his fingers winding the ties with neat dexterity. “Go inside. Have breakfast. The Lady said she wanted to see you after and it’s not a good idea to keep her waiting.”

He skipped breakfast. He could feel the eyes on him, could hear the whispers about him, even as he paused at the entrance of the common eating hall. The younger males stared and the older males murmured, and Ronon didn’t need to hear what they were saying to know that it was about him - and the ring he’d once worn.

The slurs were familiar - a pleasure slave was the highest in the hierarchy of slaves, but the most reviled among free males. Jealousy, Ronon had learned - jealousy and fear. By dehumanising the male brought to bed solely for pleasure, a free male could believe that he was superior to the slaves - that he need never fear being ringed and punished for nothing more than having a cock - and the balls and sass that came with it.

Ronon hadn’t expected such things here in Atlantis Territory.

Cold rage coated his insides, again, freezing his soul and giving him a predatory walk as he retraced his steps through the house back to his rooms.

The door slammed behind him and he paced across the scarlet-gold-black expanses of thick carpet like a tiger in a cage.

The room to which the Steward had ultimately shown him was elegantly furnished, not too sumptuous, but with an understated grace - like the Queen who ruled here. Ronon had ignored it last night, seeing only a bed in which to sleep without dreaming, without waking to be called to service another witch, without aching from the ring that chained him to the life he’d hated.

Last night, Atlantis had seemed like a dream.

The morning had changed nothing. He might be free in this Territory, released by the Queen, but the ring still dogged him.

He slammed his hands down on one of the side tables, pleased when it splintered beneath his blow.

They had no idea what it was like in Belka - none of them! They’d lived free all their lives, without fear of their Queen, without fear of pain or retaliation for being male. They looked at him and speculated without any understanding of what had been done to him, without any thought of who he was.

His hands curled into fists by his side, and he made for the door, needing to get out of the house, to find somewhere where there was open air and deep earth.

As he flung open the door, he stopped.

Leaning against the wall outside his room, Teyla regarded him with her head tilted to one side, dark eyes gleaming. “Were you going to see the Queen, Prince Dex, or just going out?” She looked as though she had all day to wait.

Ronon smiled, brief and tight. He’d almost forgotten the Queen’s injunction in his anger. It didn’t change much, he’d just listen to what she had to say and get out afterwards.

If he didn’t forget himself and give in to the hunger that flowed through him when he looked at her: the response of a dark-jewelled male to a darker-jewelled Queen whom he knew was capable of handling his strength. If she’d been attractive before she gave him his freedom, she was enthralling now. The morning had proved that.

To distract himself, he challenged the Black Widow.

“I thought you weren’t watching me.”

She smiled, ignoring the challenge but answering the question. “I wasn’t when you asked the question. However, Elizabeth has asked for your presence.”

Ronon nearly growled at her. Court. Where he’d be stared and eyed by the other males, distrusted and unwanted, and quite distinctly made to feel like an outsider.

Which he was.

He was tempted to storm past the Widow and ignore the summons, but imperatives older than his slavery reminded him of the duty he owed a Queen. More specifically, they reminded him of the duty he owed the Queen who’d bought his freedom.

Everything had a price. And a debt should always be paid. Ronon had learned those tenets as a boy, he could not walk away from them as a man.

He could not walk away from this Queen. Not yet.

 _Everything has a price._

He didn’t dare ask if the price was asked of his duty, or if the price was asked of his honour.

Ronon swallowed his pride and indicated the corridor.

“Lead the way.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was the Queen, but the people who served her belonged to themselves. It was all a balance of trust.

Elizabeth sat back on her haunches by her garden bed, and listened to the males argue things out among themselves.

Her private court meetings were either held in the gardens or in the library, her trusted inner circle gathering to discuss, tease, joke, or report on the things that were happening through the Territory. Since it was a beautifully warm day, Elizabeth had chosen to hold this court meeting outside while she did some gardening.

“Four extra males is excessive,” said the Master of the Guard. Stephen was sitting on a portable stool, sharpening blades with careful strokes against a whetstone. “Especially if they want us to believe they trust us.”

John turned on his heel, pacing back across the grassed area. “They don’t trust us any more than we trust them.”

“Maybe they don’t,” Carson murmured from where he stood.

“Don’t trust us?” Rodney asked. “Well that seems perfectly obvious from their inclusion of another four males. I mean, they’ve already got Kolya and her father accompanying her.”

Elizabeth felt Carson’s eyes on her as she lifted her head from contemplation of the seedlings she was planting out and gave the others the news of which her Steward was already aware. “Prince Kolya will not be accompanying them.”

Four sets of eyes turned towards her.

“He won’t?” Rodney asked, astonished.

Stephen had already looked past the news. “Four extra males to replace one?”

“But the one is Kolya,” said John. He paused. “I don’t like this.”

“Like it or not, I gave them permission for the added guard,” Elizabeth said. She held up one hand as both John and Stephen began their protests. “Even Prince Kolya and another four males, plus Lady Sora’s regular guard, would be no match against the massed strength of the First Circle and the males presently on the estate.”

“It’s not a question of numbers or strength,” John said. He sat down on the bench beside Rodney, leaning back and stretching out his legs in casual arrogance. “It’s a question of trust.”

Stephen shrugged. “The Gennii have never trusted us. That’s not new.”

“Well, I don’t trust them either!”

“John,” Elizabeth kept her voice light as she began pricking out her seedlings.

“You’ve never trusted them either,” he said.

Rodney cleared his throat. “Might I remind you of the first time we visited Gennii Territory?”

She glared at him, ignoring John’s sharp gaze upon her.

Yes, she remembered the first visit to the Gennii.

At eighteen, Elizabeth was the successor to the Queen of Atlantis Territory and everyone knew it. As part of her responsibilities, she was sent on a summer tour through the neighbouring Territories. Part of it was to speak with the Queens with whom she’d be dealing when she became the Territory Queen of Atlantis, and meet their chosen successors.

Her escort were a dozen males: seven experienced warriors, including her father, and five young males, including John and Rodney.

The tours through the Territories of Cheyanne, Korbal, Moiya and Serenitha went without trouble. Getting a full dressing-down at by two sets of fathers for starting a fight in the water fountain at Noradh town square wasn’t trouble - that was expected after Elizabeth and Samantha had dunked each other’s respective escorts, giggling madly before the boyos came after them.

In Gennii Territory, however, things were different. Subtly different in a way that Elizabeth had been hard-put to pinpoint at first.

The people were more reserved, more polite. The males were more arrogant, and the witches more subdued than Elizabeth expected. After a couple of young aristos tried to get their hands on her thighs, she understood why.

Lady Sora of the Gennii was very young, very poised, and more than a little disconcerting. Elizabeth found the young Queen disquieting, even as she approved her instincts. The girl had spirit, but was smart enough to keep it hidden from the males controlling the Territory that would someday become hers. In a place like Gennii Territory, there was no such thing as too careful.

And then there was Warlord Prince Kolya, of the male council of the Gennii.

He was brisk and polite where the head of the male council - Warlord Cowan - was urbane and charming; but Elizabeth felt his eyes on her as she was introduced to the others.

“ _A Queen for Atlantis,_ ” he said as he held out his, palms down in formal greeting. She’d returned the gesture, gently pressing upwards in firm reminder of her status as a Queen. “ _I hope you enjoy your stay in Gennii Territory, my Lady._ ”

Elizabeth’s Black Widow mother had taught her some small things through her childhood years. And the echoes she’d received back from even the faintest psychic brush across Kolya’s mind had terrified her.

The rest of that visit had been a delicate balancing act; keeping her fears and concerns hidden from both the males in the court and the males of her escort. Rodney was the only male who knew just how trying those seven days in Gennii Territory had been for her.

He’d kept her secret all these years, why bring it up now?

“Rodney?” John hadn’t yet looked away from her and his tone was conversational but his eyes were hard as diamond.

“John.”

“Is there something that you’d like to share with the rest of the class?”

Rodney considered the question. “As a matter of fact, no, there isn’t.” His attitude said that he took great pleasure in blunting John’s query.

Elizabeth shook her head, while Carson rolled his eyes and Stephen hid a smile. John and Rodney had grown up with her, playmates from an early age. The pair had fought, squabbled, argued and bickered like brothers from the time they were old enough to vocalise, so their daily interplay was nothing new to her.

With the seedlings pricked out of their seedling boxes, she began planting them out one by one in a row along the garden bed and returned to the original topic.

“The point isn’t that we don’t trust the Gennii, Prince Sheppard.” The formality yanked him up, put him on notice that this wasn’t Elizabeth talking but the Queen looking out for her Territory. “The point is that you will keep your opinions on a very short leash while the Gennii are in the court. As will we all.” She looked around at the faces of her most trusted males. “If the Gennii don’t trust us, then they don’t trust us. Pointing this out will not win you any favours and certainly won’t make them trust us any more.”

“Keep in mind, also, that the request could have come from the Lady herself,” Carson added.

“Lady Sora has nothing to fear from us,” said John, his eyes narrowing.

“So you say,” Rodney retorted. “What?” He asked plaintively when all the other males glared at him. “Look, I’m just pointing out that Lady Sora’s grown up in Gennii Territory where she’s probably gotten used to being rather nervous about her safety. She knows the rules in Gennii court - to her, Atlantis court is an entirely new thing.”

“Rodney.” Elizabeth cut through the diatribe and looked around at the males of her inner Circle. “This was not supposed to turn into a speculative discussion on why Lady Sora may or may not require the extra guards. This was just to let you know of the change in arrangements for tomorrow’s court.”

“As well as introduce the new addition to the court?” Stephen asked, jerking his head towards the entrance to the gardens.

The other males all turned as Teyla stepped through the wicket-gate, walking lightly across the grass. Ronon followed a mere pace behind her.

Elizabeth watched him approach and noticed the way he moved - with the grace of a predator. He was a tall man and well-built, but carried himself with the bearing of a wild creature - and now had the same hunted air about him. She hid her concern as she studied him. At the morning training, there’d been a wild delight and pleasure in him as he fought John, allowing his nature to rise to the surface without fear of retribution. Now, the handsome features were set into careful neutrality, but he carried with him a sense of ice - of cold rage forming deep beneath the surface.

Elizabeth waved John away when he stepped closer to her, and pinned Stephen with her gaze when he shifted on the bench. Rodney and Carson both paused, aware of the currents that flowed through the garden with Ronon’s arrival, but while they felt Ronon’s anger, they didn’t rise to meet it as instinctively as the Warlord Princes did.

Among the Blood, like called to like, strength to strength - even honour to honour; and John, Stephen, and Ronon were all Warlord Princes of strength and honour.

Wasn’t that why two of them served in Elizabeth’s court and she’d bought the third from futile slavery?

“Lady, Princes, Lords,” Teyla was courteous and brisk in addressing all parties in the garden.

“You sent for me, Lady?”

There were no introductions, no courtesies, just the direct question and the effect he had on her nerves.

It was her imagination that conjured up the memory of how he’d stood last night, naked and proud in Carson’s study as she touched him. She’d felt the quiver of his shields and his skin as her fingers slid around the ring and her own desires had quivered in a response that she carefully locked away from him. He was used to the lust of women - and the satiation of that lust.

Elizabeth might desire him, but she would not use him that way and she wouldn’t give him any reason to think she might.

So she kept planting the seedlings, as much to give her hands something to do and take her mind from the proximity of him. “Prince Dex,” she said, “You’ve met everyone here.”

“Not formally,” he said. “But we’ve...encountered each other.” She could feel the dry humour in him as he spoke, but the cold rage lurked beneath it, hidden by the pleasantries.

“Consider this your formal encounter, then,” she said, choosing not to address his rage just yet. “Carson Beckett, Steward of the Court; John Sheppard, First Escort; Stephen Caldwell, Master of the Guard; Teyla Emmagen and Rodney McKay both serve in my First Circle.”

He gave them each a brisk nod, leavened only by the slightest of smiles at Teyla.

Elizabeth temporarily ignored the male hackles that rose at his smile, and continued speaking. “You are welcome in Atlantis Territory.”

“So the Steward said.”

“Well, now I confirm it,” she said. “You are a guest in this household for the next moon, or until you find service in a court of your choosing.”

He nodded.

After a slight pause, during which she waited for him to say something, Elizabeth continued. “Another Territory Queen and her escort will be arriving at the court tomorrow, staying for six days. During that time, you are welcome to move through the court or go into the town as you please.”

“It would be appreciated if you’d let us know when you’re leaving the estate,” Carson said. He met Ronon’s gaze without flinching. “It helps the housekeeper to know the numbers for mealtimes.”

And if Ronon Dex took that to mean that he would be watched, then he probably wasn’t entirely wrong.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Elizabeth sensed that it was as much of an agreement as they’d get from him.

“Once the Gennii have left Atlantis, I’ll be taking a tour of the Territory with handful of others from court. Travelling with us would provide you with a good overview of Atlantis and how things work here. It’s quite different to Belka.”

“So I see.”

She looked up to meet his gaze and held it. “It would also be your chance to meet the Blood who rule the villages and cities of the Territory. A dark-jewelled Warlord Prince would be an asset to any court and I’m given to understand that you’ve been trained as a warrior. You should be able to find service to your satisfaction.”

Elizabeth left out the matter of his _other_ training; she doubted he’d want a reminder, and she knew she certainly didn’t want to speculate on his talents in bed. Or, more correctly, he didn’t need her or anyone else in the court speculating on his bedroom skills.

And she was the Queen. The others would follow her cue.

“I said that a court can always do with more warriors,” Stephen said, taking up the thread. “That’s as true in a village Queen’s court as it is in a Territory Queen’s court.”

“He’d be wasted in the court of a village Queen,” Teyla said, sitting back on thin air and folding her legs up beneath her.

John glared at her. “He’s standing right there, Teyla.”

“And he knows that what I am saying is true,” said the other witch without a trace of repentance. “As do you. Prince Dex has skills in which the Province Queens would take great interest.”

The psychic temperature of the garden dropped, sending a shudder through them all as Ronon turned on Teyla, his eyes black and deadly.

“She _meant_ as a _guard_ ,” Rodney said with careful enunciation, breaking the silence and the cold with his words. “As I’m sure Carson would have told you last night, we don’t have pleasure slaves in Atlantis.”

Elizabeth had never been so glad of Rodney’s inability to recognise a dangerous situation. Years of friendship had attuned him to John, but he still failed to notice some of the things that others did. Still, that didn’t mean he was going to get out of a reprimand. “Rodney...”

“What? It’s not as though it’s a secret that he was a slave in Belka Territory,” Rodney retorted. “And the good-looking ones are used as pleasure slaves.”

Ronon snorted, the anger gone, a faint amusement taking its place. “You’re saying I’m good looking?”

The Green-jewelled Prince looked uncomfortable. “Well, in an overdone, over-muscled way, I suppose that, yes, the women of the court would consider you good-looking, and Sheppard, if you don’t stop smirking I still have the spell I cast on your bed when we were thirteen and it still works very effectively!”

Elizabeth bit back a smile as John mumbled something about arrogant pricks of Princes and glared at Teyla who was laughing on her invisible lounge.

“Arrogant? I’ve got nothing on you, and you know it,” Rodney harrumphed. “Anyway,” he said, turning back to Ronon. “What I was saying before you turned it into a complete misdirection was that it’s general knowledge that you were a pleasure-slave in Belka. There’s no point in hiding it or being ashamed of it. And, why yes, oddly enough, it will make you popular among the women of the courts.”

“And some of the men,” Teyla added archly, controlling her laughter.

“But not me,” Rodney said with a glare in her direction.

“I never said that.”

“No, but you were implying it.”

“The way I was implying that the skills in which the Province Queens would take an interest were sexual?” Teyla pulled herself up and tossed her loose plait over her shoulder. “I _am_ willing to admit that Prince Dex is good-looking and can no doubt exert himself to be charming when the circumstances require it.” She looked directly at Ronon. “However, I truly did not mean to reference any skills other than your fighting ability. Your abilities as a pleasure slave are between you and the women who invite you to their beds.”

Ronon looked at Teyla for a long moment, his face expressionless, then turned to Elizabeth. “Do I have the right to refuse invitations?”

“According to the Protocols and Laws of the Blood, yes.” Elizabeth fought back the blush that threatened to stain her cheeks. In moments like these, she envied Teyla. With her dusky skin, it was easier for the Black Widow to hide the more obvious physical evidence of embarrassment, while Elizabeth struggled with it. “You are free to refuse any offer that is made to you - whether for service or sexual intimacy - and not be punished for it. However,” she added, “according to the Protocols and Laws of the Blood, a woman is just as free to refuse your interest or claim and not suffer for her decision.”

The dark eyes studied her for what seemed like a long time before he nodded. “Okay.”

“In the meantime, if you have any queries about the court, any of these people will be willing to answer your questions,” Elizabeth indicated the circle. “During the Gennii visit, they may ask for your assistance--”

“If I can render it, they’ll have it.”

She was surprised at the sudden acquiescence, however flatly voiced, but kept it hidden. “Thank you.” Turning to Stephen, she asked, “Do you have any issues with the extra four males arriving in the Gennii party?”

Stephen considered the question, running a hand over his bare scalp. “Other than the fact that they were included at all, no. I’m guessing that most of her escort will be housed in the warrior barracks?”

“They didn’t say,” Carson told him. “Only that the party would be sixteeen instead of the usual twelve.”

“I don’t like that they’re changing the numbers on us _now_ ,” said John. “Kolya’s a tricky bastard--”

“Kolya isn’t the problem, John,” Rodney said. “Or weren’t you listening before?”

“Kolya is _always_ the problem,” John retorted. “Even when he’s not.”

Elizabeth caught Stephen’s eye. A moment later, his voice rang out, “Sheppard! McKay!” They stopped, giving him identical abashed looks. Stephen opened his mouth to bring them back into line and was interrupted.

“Am I needed here?” Ronon looked at Elizabeth.

Stephen answered. “Your experience would be--”

“I was asking the Lady.”

Taken aback by both his abruptness and trying to rein in the rising hackes of Stephen and John, it took her a moment to formulate an answer. “Not strictly, no. However, Prince Caldwell thinks you might be able to help--”

“He seems to have everything under control.” The dark head tilted, “May I leave?”

There was something very formal about his withdrawl, a tension that disturbed her. Elizabeth answered in kind. “You may.”

His bow had all the careful politeness of mockery, and she felt the tempers of the other males rise. A single glance quelled them, but he was already walking away across the grass.

A moment later, she stood, brushing the dirt off her trousers. “Continue without me,” she instructed Stephen. “I’ll return in a minute.”

Then she followed after Ronon.

She caught up to him at the entrance to the next garden. “Prince Dex.”

He turned. “Lady Elizabeth. How may I serve?” Once again, there was the careful edge of mockery in his voice and attitude, in the quirk of his mouth as he regarded her.

And now that she was here, she was struggling for the words to form the questions she wanted to ask. She could sense the anger in him, quiescent, but not extinguished. “I... Has someone offered you insult?”

Something predatory entered his eyes. “You’d have heard about it if they had.”

Elizabeth had grown up with Warlord Princes, aware of not only their capabilities, but their weaknesses and dangers. She was accustomed to the breed, from their violence to their loyalty, there were no half-measures in a Warlord Prince. They gave their all and when they did it could be a beautiful or a terrible thing.

As a young girl, before she took the position as Territory Queen, Elizabeth had heard the stories of Warlord Princes gone rogue - or worse than rogue. All that power, loyalty and devotion had to go somewhere. The need to serve was more than a personality characteristic, it was a driving imperative in Blood males, and brutally unforgiving when twisted.

She’d never seen a man in whom that need for service had been twisted. She hoped she wasn’t seeing one now.

“You’re in Atlantis Territory,” she said.

He looked around, then back at her. “I can see that.”

Annoyance rose in her, a bubbling anger at his mocking amusement. “We’re not Belka Territory.”

“I can see that, too.”

“So you don’t have to be who you were in Belka,” she said, trying to make him see. “You’re not a slave anymore.”

“Nobody gives me orders, perhaps,” Ronon said. “But to them,” one hand waved back at the group by the garden, “I’m still a slave.”

Elizabeth glanced at the figures beneath the orange tree. Watching her conversation with Ronon, and waiting for her to finish. She turned back to him. “You’re wrong about them. And let’s say you’re right - does it even matter? To you?”

He shrugged. “A man goes by the reputation he earns.”

“And you’ve already earned a reputation for your skills as a warrior,” she said. “I’ve heard Prince Caldwell’s appraisal of you and if he says you’re good, you are. Anything else you learned in Belka Territory - that doesn’t have to follow you if you don’t want it to.”

The full mouth twisted, oddly bitter. “You’re wrong about that.”

“Am I?” Elizabeth watched him.

Hands touched her shoulders, circled her throat with exquisite gentleness.

She started and turned around, but found no-one there. Ronon stood out of arm’s reach, and he hadn’t moved an inch, but the expression on his face...

“What was that?”

Once again the invisble hand slipped from her shoulder to her neck, sliding around to her nape and brushing lightly down her spine in sensuous teasing. Ripples coiled within her senses, expanded, exploded; her heartbeat sped up and her breathing hitched.

He was smiling. A gentle, dangerous smile lurked behind the short beard that didn’t conceal the full sweep of his mouth. “Do you like it?”

“I...” Her throat choked up as the ‘hands’ slipped back around her throat, slid down her front, curved lightly over her breasts and down to her waist. It wasn’t a case of liking or disliking: her body was responding to the ghostly teasing with a piercing ache, her flesh yearning for the completion it whispered that only he could give. “Stop it.”

Fingers caressed the curve of her breast, stroking the flesh, molding the nipple lightly. Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath and let it out with shaky control.

“Do you _want_ me to stop it?” Whatever hold he’d been keeping on his psychic nature before this was gone. Elizabeth could feel the heat pouring off him, intense as a fire, sensuous as a lover, viciously, dangerously male as only a Warlord Prince could be.

The ‘hands’ were stroking her everywhere, teasing her, soft and warm touches against her skin, against her thighs, against her throat. Fingers curved over her skin as delicately as a butterfly’s wings, and she felt the trace of long fingers up the inside of her thighs - _felt_ the ache between her thighs as he stopped just short of her core.

Her soft whimper was gutteral.

She couldn’t breathe for _wanting_.

She couldn’t see for disgust.

Yes, she wanted Ronon Dex, but not like this. Not with him standing there, mocking her with his eyes and expression, watching her struggle against the tidal current of desire.

Elizabeth had never yet had a man unwilling; she wasn’t about to begin with Ronon Dex.

She reached out with Craft, an extension of her hand and _concentrated_. Her slap sent him sprawling into the garden bed. The hands vanished, and with it all the hot desire, leaving her cold and shaking with fury.

“You will _never_ touch me like that again,” she whispered and saw him flinch.

But he had his own anger to burn and no loyalty to hold him silent. “I am what I am, Lady.” The words were low and bitter and touched something in her soul.

She was still angry. He’d touched her as he had no right to do - and worse, she’d responded as she shouldn’t have - but the icy chill was gone, leaving only fire. It would simmer down to ashes.

Already she could sense the others coming, alerted by her wave of anger, and she cursed her carelessness in letting her anger flare for that one moment. “Perhaps. But the only person in Atlantis who will decide who you will be is you, Prince,” she said. “I promise you that.”

He met her eyes and she felt the pull of her own personal attraction to him. In spite of what he’d done - of what he’d tried to force her to - it was still there, undimmed.

A single nod indicated his acceptance of her words - belief would come later.

Elizabeth drew her self-possession about her, gave him one last, brief look and walked to intercept her approaching inner Circle before they realised what had transpired. If John or Stephen got any hint of what Ronon had done, they would show him no mercy.

He was not of her court, she had no responsibility to protect him. Still, something in her demanded that she extend him her faith for a little while longer - until he’d learned what the others in Atlantis already knew.

She was the Queen, but the people who served her belonged to themselves.

It was all a balance of trust.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he looked down at the empty courtyard, he could almost see her standing down there, dark-haired, fair-skinned, proud and graceful, and with the vital, vibrant aura of a Queen.

The wind out on the terrace was a little cold against his skin. It was better than his memories.

 _I will serve with honour or not at all._

Below him, in the courtyard, the Queen and the foremost three males of her court waited for the Gennii party to unload themselves from the coach.

Ronon slid his hand along the line of his jaw where she’d slapped him.

The rest of the day had passed without incident. Oh, the other males of the First Circle looked askance at him, and the Black Widow watched him with measuring eyes, but he was quiet and well-behaved, and as unlike the troublesome slave of Belka Territory as he’d ever been.

And Elizabeth ignored his presence, as though she could wipe out his existence by pretending he wasn’t there.

Ronon didn’t blame her. It was one thing for a woman to call a pleasure slave and expect to be serviced. It was another for a Queen to confront a male out of concern for his state of mind and find herself mere inches from being seduced against her will.

He’d reacted to a Queen in old habit; taunting her with what other Queens had been willing to take from him: his skills in bed, a hard cock, and a warm body to ride to pleasure.

Atlantis wasn’t Belka Territory and Elizabeth wasn’t any of the Queens for whom he’d slaved.

Her response had proven that; hot fury followed by cold. He’d felt the shuddering bite of her words as she stated them, the rejection of her walk away from their confrontation. And he’d picked himself up, brushed himself down, and watched the interrupted meeting continue for a full minute before he went back to the house.

Everything had a price.

 _You will never touch me like that again._

Service with honour? Not here in this court; not after a betrayal like that.

Even after one day here, the thought ached in his throat.

His memory cast up the feel of her hand on his chest, the touch of her psychic probe against his inner web, measuring his emotions, the fingertip that had touched him so lightly and yet with such intimacy and tenderness. As if that wasn’t enough, his body was only too eager to remember the way she’d initially responded to his shadow caresses - the still, tense hunger that bloomed in every nerve before she slapped him down.

 _That doesn’t have to follow you if you don’t want it to._

Instead, he’d brought it with him.

Ronon knew that if not for her actions, he would have followed through to her climax, and to hell with her First Circle standing in the gardens. Not because she owned him, or out of gratitude for his release, not even to prove a point to her - that she would value his skills in bed far more than anything he could bring to her as a warrior. He would have molded her to ecstacy purely for the male pleasure of watching a woman lose her self-possession at his hands - a woman he _wanted_ to please.

A dark-jewelled Queen who lived by the old ways, who respected male strength. A Queen who reached out to a male not of her court for compassion’s sake. A witch who tugged at his soul like a hook in his skin.

A Queen who would never take on a male who’d betrayed her trust the way he had.

The chill wind scoured through him in a particularly intense gust. He was glad of the cold, glad of the numbness that it gave his body.

He wondered if it could numb the image he had of offering himself in service and being utterly rejected.

Behind him, the door leading out from the library opened.

“So here’s where you’re hiding.” Ronon didn’t turn as Rodney McKay came out onto the terrace and regarded the display down in the courtyard below. “Not a bad view, I suppose. If you don’t mind not knowing what they’re talking about.”

Ronon shrugged. “I don’t.”

He was a little surprised that the Green-Jewelled Prince was speaking to him at all. Sheppard, Caldwell, and Beckett were all wary of him after his scene with Elizabeth. They might not know exactly what had transpired between the newcomer to the court and their Queen, but they well aware that _something_ had changed.

Only McKay seemed not to notice anything.

“Well, it’s not as though anything interesting happens during the greetings,” McKay commented, turning around to lean back against the railing. He wagged his finger in the air. “No, actually, I lie. It can get _very_ interesting when Kolya joins the party - although that’s just because of him and Sheppard. They have this not-so-subtle dance thing going between them. It can be entertaining to watch as long as they never get into an actual fight.”

“People head for the hills?” Ronon inquired as the males approached the quartet standing in the courtyard: Steward, Master of the Guard, and Escort or Consort - and the fourth side of the Blood triangle - the Queen who ruled them all.

Four floors up, she looked tall compared to the small, red-haired visiting Queen, elegant against the young woman’s less certain movements. Even from this distance, she was exquisite, the dark curls of her hair tossing about in the wind.

Rodney peered down at the group. “Something like that.”

“So they really don’t like each other.”

“They _really_ don’t. It’s partly because they both wear the Sapphire and are Warlord Princes.”

“And the rest of it?”

“John lives by Blood Law and the Protocols.”

“Kolya doesn’t.” He made it more of a question than a statement.

Below them, the group made small talk, politely in Elizabeth’s case, warily in the case of the males of her court. Ronon studied the group as he waited for the other man’s response.

“Elizabeth did a tour of Gennii Territory a few years before she reached her majority,” the other man said at last. “We went through four other Territories, saw plenty of other Queens and their courts,” a brief, reminiscent smile touched the Prince’s face, “got tossed into a few fountains.” A moment later he sobered. “She was fine until we reached Gennii Territory.”

It was hard to ignore the other man’s rising protectiveness towards the woman who held out her hands to the young woman in the courtyard, her palms facing down. The red-haired girl - barely into womanhood - turned her hands palm up and met her, palm-to-palm. The gesture was one of trust; leaving the wrists open to nails.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” McKay said at last. “She wouldn’t tell me - and she wouldn’t let me tell Sheppard, either.”

“And you didn’t say--?”

McKay glared at him. “Her judgement is good - usually better than Sheppard. Well, most of the time it is. Anyway, when we got back to Atlantis, she told her mother that she wouldn’t go back into Gennii Territory again without having had her Virgin Night - and she didn’t.”

Which meant she considered the males in Gennii Territory untrustworthy. Reason enough for her court to be wary of the group below.

Reason enough for Ronon to be wary of the group below.

Ronon eyed the Prince beside him. “I’m surprised you’re still trading with them.”

“She’s the Queen,” said McKay as though that explained it. And it did in some respects. “And the others don’t know just how bad that trip was on her.” He looked down at the Queen he served. “She’s good at dissembling when she wants to be.”

Ronon watched him. McKay caught the glance.

“Look, if I judged that there was any reason to let the others know...”

“You’d have said,” Ronon finished. “What’s the deal with Gennii Territory?”

The wind ruffled McKay’s hair. “Did you want the long version or the short?”

“Short.” The long could come later.

“Hmm. Well, their strongest Queens died and the male council took over.”

It took him a second to realise that _was_ the short version. “That’s all?”

“You wanted the short version.”

“I take it back. Give me the longer story.”

McKay sighed. “The five strongest Queens in Gennii Territory died in the space of four moons. Different reasons; accidents, illnesses - nothing really suspicious.”

“And?”

“And the male council took over the Territory. Oh, they have a light-jewelled Queen who’s their puppet and has her own court, but the real power lies with the male council and it shows.”

“Led by Kolya.”

“Well, actually, it’s led by Prince Cowan,” McKay said.

“Which might qualify as worse,” said a new voice. Ronon turned as the young Warlord passed smoothly through the door without bothering to open it. “Kolya’s a bastard, but he’s direct about it. On the other hand, Cowan’s twisted as a corkscrew.” The dark youth walked up on the other side of McKay and rested his hands on the railing. His eyes drifted warily over Ronon, but there was no particular judgement in the young man’s eyes, just a warrior-trained assessment of the threat Ronon presented.

McKay scowled at the young man. “And what would you know about the Gennii, Ford? Been into their Territory?”

“Just once,” Ford said, defensive at McKay’s tone of voice. “Escorting Lady Sora back to the border. Look, I may not know what it’s like in the capital, McKay, but I know what the warriors are like when they get away from our court.”

“And what exactly would that be?”

Ford shrugged. “Different.”

“Oh, well, _there’s_ an accurate term of description,” muttered McKay. “‘ _Different_.’ What are you doing out here anyway, Ford? Shouldn’t you be downstairs doing that guard thing you do?”

“He is here at my request, which the Master of the Guard approved,” came a new voice from behind them. The Black Widow walked out of the library, passing through the leadlight door as though it had been insubstantial air. “I did not realise that this vantage point was already taken, or else I would have left him to his duties with the guardsmen.” But her smile at Ford was affectionate as she took up position against the railing.

“You know, we’re probably pretty obvious from down there,” McKay was saying.

“They were aware of us from the beginning,” Ronon retorted. “They’re just choosing not to acknowledge us.” He’d caught a glance or two from the warriors, although the young Queen hadn’t so much as looked around her.

“Isn’t that an insult or something?”

“It is a preservation of the niceties,” said Teyla as she pulled out her hairband and tilted her head to one side in a wave of reddish-brown hair. “Besides,” she noted as she replaited her braid, “they haven’t yet concluded their greetings to Elizabeth.”

“You were talking about Gennii Territory,” prompted Ford.

“I was just updating Prince Dex with history of Gennii Territory. Actually, it’s a bit like a counting game: five Queens, four moons, three ambitious men, two Provinces, and one girl who grew up to be the new Queen.”

McKay’s voice was light, but Ronon could sense the misgivings beneath the light voice.

Which would explain the distrust of Gennii Territory here in Atlantis Territory. Ambition rarely had a limit. And these weren’t just ambitious people - they were ambitious people who wouldn’t hesitate to harm a Queen to gain the power they desired.

Ronon looked down at the figures in the courtyard and wondered how close Gennii Territory was to becoming another Belka Territory.

He wondered if there was any way to stop it.

“Puppet Queen,” Ford was saying to McKay. “And Sora knows it.”

Teyla smiled, “Lady Sora is aware that her position is tenuous in the face of the male council. She’ll be nineteen before Winsol, and hasn’t yet made the Offering. Things are...difficult for her at present.”

“And how do _you_ know all that?”

She gave Ford a serene smile. “I have my sources.”

“So do you have any particular advice or offering to give Lady Sora at this time?” McKay asked, with a glance at Teyla. “Woven any tangled webs lately?”

Ronon blinked. He’d never seen a man make such an off-handed reference to the Hourglass craft before a Black Widow: not in Belka Territory, not even in Sateda.

She looked from McKay out to the group who was now moving from the courtyard into the house and something in her gaze unfocused. “Snow in midsummer,” she said quietly. Wisps of hair tore free of her braid, tangling in the wind, swirling around her face, unnoticed as she stared into empty air. “Snow in midsummer and loss at Winsol... A broken web that starts it all...”

Seconds passed during which the three men exchanged startled looks.

It didn’t look like either McKay or Ford had a clue what to do, but Ronon approved of the young Warlord’s boldness - he reached out one hand to touch her on the shoulder.

Her eyes fell upon Ford, and she shook her head as though clearing it of cobwebs.

“Teyla,” he said gently. “Have you Seen?”

She shivered, as though stepping back from a cold place and looked the young man in the eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Well, can’t you weave a tangled web to confirm your vision?” McKay asked impatiently.

The look she turned on him would have halted another man in his tracks. Ronon tensed, fighting back the urge to rise to the killing edge in response to that deadly glare. Ford froze, his eyes glued to Teyla.

McKay simply looked like a teacher facing a student who was slow to pick up the lesson. If the man had any survival instincts, Ronon decided they were buried deep. Too deep for even the Red to pierce.

Maybe that was the reason why, after a moment, the Widow exhaled softly. “I can,” she said. “But it will take time.”

“And right now, you don’t have the time,” Ford said. “Don’t worry about it, Teyla. I’m sure Lady Sora has her own Black Widows watching out for her.”

“Assuming, you know, they’re not all dead or broken,” said McKay. He caught the exasperation of the others and protested. “What? You know it’s true! Or at least probable.”

“We know what you’re saying,” said Ford, exasperated. “Just don’t say that around the Gennii, okay?”

“What do you take me for - an idiot? Ah!” McKay held up one hand as Ford opened his mouth to answer. “Don’t even _think_ of answering that!” He huffed. “I’m cold. Is anyone else cold? I’m going in.”

Down in the courtyard, the Queens had finished their pleasantries, come to the same conclusion as McKay, and were retiring inside.

A querying glance from Ford and the slightest of nods from the Widow dismissed the young Warlord. He bickered easily with McKay as they went inside, leaving Ronon alone with the Widow.

Ronon watched her, intrigued in spite of his wariness of her caste. She was small of stature, but compact and lean, and there was neither resentment nor challenge in her gaze as she looked him over. “I take it that you have not encountered many Black Widows in the courts of Belka Territory?”

He met her gaze, forcing himself to hold her eyes. “I tried to avoid them.” It was a risk, but she didn’t seem cruel or standoffish, just intrigued - or perhaps amused.

“I suppose that I also would avoid Black Widows were I not one myself. The Hourglass Craft is dangerous and can be used both to help and to harm.” She gave him a very direct look. “I imagine it was more often used to harm in Belka territory.”

There wasn’t anything he could say to deny it.

Ronon chose to change the topic. “You said you saw a broken web. A witch’s inner web?”

She hesitated. “I...I cannot tell,” she said. “A Seeing is nothing more than shattered fragments that can be pieced together any which way.”

Down in the courtyard, the last of the Gennii warriors was climbing the stairs. Ronon saw him glance up at the balcony, eyeing them for a wary second. Then he went inside.

“Lady Sora hasn’t had her Virgin Night.”

“Not yet.”

Ronon hesitated before asking the next question, but years in Belka Territory forced the words from his lips. “Is she likely to be broken?”

Teyla went rigid, but her voice was calm. “It is always possible.”

“Then _would_ they?”

A witch’s adult strength was entirely dependant on her first sexual experience. She could emerge from that first time with her Craft intact, or broken beyond all hope of skill or ability. It was an easy way to dispose of a young, powerful witch. A witch like Sora of the Gennii.

“What is it to you?”

He let her challenge pass. “I spent seven years in a Territory that thought nothing of breaking a Queen if she was a threat to the Queens in power.” His smile was thin and feral. “I’m looking for the reassurance that Gennii Territory is not on its way to becoming Belka.”

And something in him coiled in anger and revulsion, taught and trained in the Laws and Protocols of the Blood: to break a Queen simply to retain one’s own power...

“Having only visited Belka the once and never having visited Gennii Territory at all, I cannot give you that reassurance,” Teyla retorted. “However, you may observe the Gennii for yourself. They will be present at the court for the next few days without fail.”

“And Lady Sora?”

She gave him a very direct, very piercing look. “Do you seek service with her?”

He bared his teeth. “I am a Warlord Prince. It is in my nature to protect and serve.”

Dark eyes looked him over, summed him up. Finally, she nodded acceptance of his words and his territoriality. She understood the essential nature of Warlord Princes, at least - no surprise given that she lived so close to at least two of them.

And Ronon was surprised to feel relief that she accepted him as he was: a dangerous, volatile male who equalled her in caste rank, if not Jewel strength. More than just accepting his nature, she accepted _him_. There was no fear in her expression as she turned away, no wariness. She wasn’t waiting for him to strike.

She trusted him.

Even more surprising to him, Ronon trusted her.

A Black Widow, yes, but one who understood who he was, what he was.

And if the trust of a Black Widow felt like this within him - as though he had wings with which to take to the skies, Ronon could only wonder how the trust of the Queen would feel.

Breath caught in his throat and he swallowed hard. If he looked down at the empty courtyard, he could almost see her standing down there, dark-haired, fair-skinned, proud and graceful, and with the vital, vibrant aura of a Queen.

 _You will never touch me like that again._

He doubted he’d be gaining Elizabeth’s trust anytime soon.

Maybe, instead, there would be hope for him in this young Queen? From the sound of it, Lady Sora was young, powerful, unbroken, and fragile in that wholeness. Maybe she might welcome a Dark-Jewelled Warlord Prince in her court.

He couldn’t serve Elizabeth of Atlantis, but he might be able to be of service to Sora of the Gennii.

Ronon supposed the only way to tell would be to approach her court and her people.

The Black Widow was nearly at the door when he asked the question again. “Would the male council break her to keep their power in their Territory?”

She turned and her dark gaze rested upon him with troubling honesty. “I don’t know.”

And that was all the answer Ronon had.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His choice. Her loss.

“Tyrus isn’t enjoying Prince Dex’s courtesies to Sora,” John observed in a quiet moment during the evening party.

Elizabeth shifted her shoulders a little, not entirely comfortable with the dress, the gathering, or the sight of the tall, dark Warlord Prince talking easily to the Gennii Queen. Two days of the Gennii visit and that had become a common occurrence. Now, if only she could innure herself to the sight of it.

“That’s not surprising,” she said. “Remember my father when we were in Cheyanne Territory?”

“Of course,” John said. “I remember your father in all his moods. Especially when he was annoyed - usually because you’d led Rodney and I on one of your escapades and _we_ got in trouble for it.”

Elizabeth nodded at another aristo couple who passed her and John. A nod without a warm smile of pleasure meant ‘don’t approach me, I’m having a private conversation with my First Escort.’

She snorted softly. “That was a long time ago.”

“Only as long ago as the the tour,” he pointed out. “And your father was watchful of the boys in the other Territories, but he wasn’t hostile.”

True. But then her father had trusted her judgement - and the abilities of the Queen in each Territory to rein in their males.

She supposed she should be offended that Tyrus didn’t trust her people - except that Stephen had been right yesterday in the gardens when he’d noted that the Gennii had never trusted them. The Gennii looked at Atlantis Territory with its strong Queen and powerful dark-jewelled males, and feared their ambition, seeing their own reflection in Atlantis.

She studied Sora now. Dressed in a sumptuous blue brocade embroidered with silver dragons, the young Gennii Queen was enjoying the attention of the males in Atlantis, particularly the young aristo males. All through the ballroom, the youths of her escort were similarly engaging the aristo witches of Atlantis.

The household staff had done a magnificent task of decorating the main ballroom with summer garlands and festoons of trailing ivy. Candles gleamed by the hundred in the chandelier, and balls of witchlight hovered just in front of each vase of flowers, illuminating the decorations in front and shadowing the curtained alcove behind.

“Why do you think they brought the four extra males?” John asked.

Elizabeth shot him a look. “Not now, John.”

“There wasn’t any need for them,” he continued, ignoring her. “They’re just escorting Sora, not defending against anything. And the older ones aren’t even socialising.”

The aristo Blood of Atlantis danced, chattered, gossiped, and politicked as though there were no tomorrow. But while the younger Gennii males moved easily enough through the crowd, the older Gennii males remained in their own group, aloof and apart.

They’d once been close allies with Atlantis, but when the male council took over, Lady Melia had refused to directly trade with anyone but the Province Queens. Elizabeth had chosen to deal with the male council as minimally as possible, but all the trade agreements held between Atlantis and Gennii Territories were directed through the Province Queens in the absence of a Territory Queen.

Elizabeth had made it quite clear that this would be the case until a Queen ruled Gennii Territory again.

Within a couple of years, Gennii Territory would have its Queen - one with Jewels dark enough to command the allegiance of the Province Queens, and possibly with enough knowledge of how a Queen’s court should be run that Gennii society wouldn’t descend into a gender war between witches and Blood males: the sexes fighting for dominance.

Sora was the main reason Elizabeth had kept the minimal contact with the male council. “The older ones won’t matter in two years time,” she told him. “When Sora makes the Offering to the Darkness...”

“She has to be intact to claim her adult strength,” John reminded her.

“I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

When he didn’t answer within a few minutes, she narrowed her eyes at him. “John...”

He held out his hand. “I feel like a turn on the dancing floor.”

Elizabeth studied him, narrow-eyed. “You don’t dance.”

The hazel gaze flashed intently. “I do tonight.”

She could turn him down, but their conversation wasn’t finished. And John was her First Escort; Elizabeth had neither the desire nor the intention to make a scene in the middle of her own party. So she settled her hand lightly atop his, and tilted her head in challenge and question.

“Was this supposed to be a distraction?” She asked when they’d done a full turn of the room and he hadn’t said anything further. “Because I can tell you now that it’s not going to work.”

“Most of the males in the court would be willing--”

“And if Sora’s not willing?”

“All you have to do is suggest it to her.”

She stared at him. “John, I am _not_ going to suggest to Sora that she have her Virgin Night here in Atlantis.”

“She’d come out of it intact.”

“And would you be offering to see her through it?” Her question was slightly spiteful; she knew exactly what was prompting his suggestions - and it wasn’t lust.

“If I had to,” he snapped. “Elizabeth, this is a _Queen_ we’re talking about. You know the only reason they’ve let Sora get this old without breaking her is because Tyrus, Kolya and Cowen believe they have her firmly under their thumb.”

“You don’t think they do.”

“Neither do you,” he said and he held her gaze as they spun around. “Or you wouldn’t keep inviting her back to Atlantis.”

He was right. Sora as a little girl had been pathetically pleased to have a Queen visit her that first time, and emulated Elizabeth all the way down to a fake Green Jewel around her throat. A year later when she came to Atlantis with her entourage, she wore Birthright Purple-Dusk and was considerably more grown-up - a young lady, only too aware of her status as Jewelled Blood.

With the Purple-Dusk as her Birthright Jewel, she might descend as far as the Sapphire when she made the Offering. That would put her at equal strength to Kolya, although she was a Queen and he was just a Warlord Prince.

And something in Elizabeth kept hoping that Sora had seen enough of Atlantis Territory and the way a court should work so that, when the time came for her to take up court...

Not that her court was perfect by a long shot, Elizabeth admitted. But the emotional leashes on the Blood males held, and witches didn’t have to walk in fear. There was balance and passion, delight and appreciation, and the interplay between Queen and the court who served her.

Sora was intelligent enough to pick that up. Whether the males in Gennii Territory would understand that balance was a different matter. Still, once Sora had made the Offering, Elizabeth hoped the girl, although young, would be strong enough to take back the Territory that her guardians had fractured with their power-plays.

Maybe Ronon Dex would be part of that.

A glance back to where Sora had been speaking with Ronon showed him now standing alone. His eyes met hers, and she felt the warmth of them slide down her spine, even as John turned her through the next set.

His eyes flickered over her shoulder to where she’d just been watching, and a smile grew on his lips. “You’re interested.”

“He’s not.” The reply tripped off her tongue easily.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said John, leaning in a little. “He’s watching us very closely.”

Elizabeth didn’t look. “It might just be another challenge at you.”

He smiled across at her, handsome features even more attractive with amusement. “You didn’t deny that you’re interested.”

She didn’t explain that there was no point in denial. Teyla had caught on fast enough; whether or not she had shared that information with John was a moot point - John would have realised it soon enough on his own.

“Did you offer him a place in the court?” Hazel eyes studied her sharply. “Did he turn it down?” She felt a flash of anger, a glint of light in the Sapphire Jewel he wore at his throat.

Elizabeth shook her head, pressing her fingers lightly against him in warning. “What passed between us was private,” she reminded him. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“But you’re going to let him walk away.”

“I thought you wanted Sora to have a strong court.”

“I’d rather she was a strong Queen,” he muttered.

“Even a strong Queen can be undermined by the males of her court if they don’t understand the checks and balances, John.”

He looked at her. “This is the first time you’ve responded to a male like that since--”

“--Simon. I know.” Elizabeth took a deep breath and exhaled gently. “Teyla already pointed that out to me.”

The lazy smile on his lips broadened into smugness, and she gently pricked her nails though his evening jacket and shirt.

“Ow!”

“Don’t you say anything.”

“Did it _look_ like I was saying anything?” John scowled at her. “Look, I’m not saying you have to insist Sora have her Virgin Night here. But you could at least suggest it.”

“I’m not going to suggest it, John.”

“Elizabeth...”

“Drop the topic, Prince. Both of them.”

John heard the warning in her voice and didn’t speak again. But beneath her hand, his shoulder was stiff and proud.

It wasn’t that she wanted Sora broken. It was just that there was no way to suggest to Sora that she have her Virgin Night here without implicitly insulting the Gennii. Sora might be aware of the difficulties presented by her Territory, but she had a certain pride in her Territory and her people - as was fitting for a Queen. And Elizabeth wouldn’t undermine that pride - without it, Sora wouldn’t be the right Queen for her people and her Territory.

Without it, Sora wouldn’t be the right Queen for Ronon to serve.

Elizabeth was careful not to let her eyes return to the corner of the room where Ronon Dex stood.

He was his own man for the first time in seven years. Free to choose where he’d take his service. He wasn’t bound to Elizabeth’s court; he wasn’t subject to her will.

She sighed. Even the man she was dancing with might be subject to her will, but he had his own nature to placate. Certainly there were enough times when he’d gone against her will, trusting his own judgement in his need to protect her and the others of her First Circle.

She might be John’s Queen, but she could only rein him in when he was willing to be led. That was the way of all Warlord Princes. They could be leashed by violence or leashed with love.

And it looked like the leash Ronon Dex wanted would be held by Sora of the Gennii.

Elizabeth held onto her emotions with great care. Hadn’t she told Teyla that he owed her nothing? She couldn’t collect on a debt she’d already negated. And he deserved to be allowed to choose for himself.

The choice of service was as much the male’s right as the Queen’s decision.

When they were fifteen, she’d been infuriated at John for chasing off a lighter-Jewelled boy in whom she’d been interested. She’d told him that no Queen would want a Warlord Prince that was so high-handed with her life. He’d scoffed that Warlord Princes had the _right_ to be high-handed with the life of their Queen. That was what service entailed. “We _choose to serve_ you _, Elizabeth, not the other way around._ ”

She’d sulked for a whole two days after that.

The musicians finished with a flourish and the waltz ended, and John arched a brow as he bowed to her. “So, who did you want to talk to now?”

“Teyla’s talking with Halling by the windows,” Elizabeth said. “I’d like a word.”

As John led her off the floor, Elizabeth sighed. Generally, she wasn’t fond of parties, finding them too crowded and busy. However, there were certain expectations of a Territory Queen, among them, that parties would be thrown, dinners attended, and ceremony observed.

That didn’t mean she had to _like_ them.

“Relax,” John murmured. “Another three hours, four at the most, and we’re done.”

They moved through the crowds, greeting the aristo Blood of Atlantis one by one until they reached the window embrasure and the two who spoke there.

Halling was a Warlord who wore Purple-Dusk Jewels and came from the village of Athos in the south of Atlantis - the same village from which Teyla had come. He was telling her of his son, Jinto, who’d just gone through the Birthright ceremony and come out with an Opal Jewel. There was pride in their voices, an easy affection. It was through Teyla that Halling and Jinto had become known to the Atlantis court.

“His mother would be proud of him,” Teyla was saying. “Is he excited?”

“Oh, yes,” said Halling. He glanced at Elizabeth and John as they joined the talking pair. “He tells me that he will someday wear a Sapphire Jewel like Prince Sheppard here.”

“A good Jewel to wear,” John said, smiling. “Tell him that when he’s sixteen, I’ll sponsor him through formal court training.”

Halling looked both gratified and anxious. “Prince Sheppard, I could not-- We could not impose--”

“The realm will always need more strong Warlord Princes, Halling,” Elizabeth reminded him. “Jinto might serve in a Queen’s First Circle when he’s older.”

“We never dreamed--” The Athosian paused as Teyla shifted, catching his eye. He smiled. “I thank you, Lady Elizabeth, Prince Sheppard. Jinto will be very pleased.”

Elizabeth drew Teyla away with brief apologies, leaving the two males talking - probably about Jinto, who was a favourite of John’s.

“I believe Jinto’s excitement at being trained at your court will overshadow any excitement he has at wearing Birthright Opal,” Teyla said, smiling.

“Court training is eight years away,” Elizabeth replied. “He’ll have all that time to become accustomed to the idea.” _* I have to talk to you about the Gennii._ *

Teyla didn’t betray any surprise at being contacted on a psychic thread. “You will need at least a couple of years to prepare yourself for the influx of Athosians who will wish to train here at your court.” _*You have particular concerns?_ *

Elizabeth winced. It hadn’t occurred to her that more of the Athosian children might want to get their training in the Atlantis court. One more thing to think about. “Do you think there’ll be many?” * _Nothing more specific than why they felt the need for four more guards. John is right. The extra four are unnecessary._ *

“Only all of them,” Teyla laughed. “I fear John is something of a hero among the children.” * _They have not indicated or hinted why they felt the need for more escorts. I have not asked. Would you like me to do so?_ *

She nodded, glancing back at John and Halling where they were discussing tactics against the Wraith. “Little surprise there,” she murmured. “Boys need heroes.” _*No. But...keep your eyes and ears open around them. They’ve always responded to you better than to me.*_

“And John is more of a hero than most.” Teyla said the words easily enough, and Elizabeth couldn’t resist a small psychic prod.

* _Have you told him that to his face?_ *

The look she received was amused. * _He already knows it._ *

Maybe he did. But it wouldn’t hurt John to hear it from Teyla.

She didn’t say it. Stephen and Carson had both advised her against interfering in John’s life. _You’re his Queen,_ Stephen had said. _You control his life - you don’t meddle with it._

Teyla was watching something behind Elizabeth, a growing laughter in her expression. Elizabeth turned to see what the other woman found so entertaining--

And found herself nearly nose-to-collarbone with Ronon Dex.

She took a step back and tried to ignore the sudden pulse of blood in her body. “Prince Dex.”

“Lady Elizabeth.” He glanced at Teyla. “Lady Emmagen.”

Teyla, traitor that she was, nodded at him once, met Elizabeth’s gaze, then turned on her heel without a further word and went back to where John and Halling were still talking.

Elizabeth saw John’s lift of the eyebrow and sighed.

“I’m missing something.” It wasn’t quite a question.

“No, nothing.”

He eyed her, from the low neck of her dress to the colour rising in her cheeks, and she hastily asked. “Lady Sora seemed entertained by your company, earlier.”

One broad shoulder lifted in a shrug as he turned his head to look out at the dance floor. “She doesn’t get much attention in her Territory.”

Elizabeth blinked, focusing on the lines of his face, on the tattoo at his throat. “She told you that?”

“No,” he said immediately, and looked down at her. “But it’s obvious enough.”

To avoid his eyes, Elizabeth looked out over the candlelit crowds, falling on the distinctive red curls of the young Queen. The young woman was dancing in the arms of Aiden, and if she’d been smiling at Prince Dex before, she was openly laughing at whatever it was Aiden was telling her.

She could see why the young Queen might appeal to the jaded Warlord Prince whose eyes she could still feel on her. Sora was still not old enough to have given in to the cruelties that she might otherwise have been shown; with her own wisdom, but seeking a strong, mature male whom she could trust to protect and serve.

Elizabeth kept a tight hold on the spark of jealousy that threatened to take to flame. The man standing beside her wasn’t of her court. She had no claim on him and she didn’t want a claim on him.

 _Liar._

“Dance?”

She could refuse the invitation. She was tempted to refuse - why play with fire? The warmth of his skin was already too close; she could feel him mere inches away from her. Pressed up against him, her senses would have no resistance.

Elizabeth lifted her chin and met his eyes, about to decline.

Something in his expression stopped her. A hint of vulnerability, of hunger - a need that she couldn’t quite ignore. It pulled too hard at who and what she was.

 _Our society is a balance of trust, Elizabeth,_ her mother had told her when she was eight. _They give their lives into the hands of a woman, and she gives them her protection and care. They need us more than we need them - the male gender needs to serve the female: it’s incised in their soul in granite. More than anything, the Queens and their courts exemplify the core of the Blood: service with honour, trust with protection, nurturing with love. Destroy that and we destroy each other._

So she held out her arm, and he slipped his hand beneath hers and led her out to the floor.

* _I still say he’d be wasted in the court of anything less than a Province Queen,_ * Teyla said to her on a Red distaff thread.

Elizabeth ignored her friend.

She was too busy reminding herself to breathe.

The dance was another waltz, slow and easy, and she cursed the timing. If he’d asked her for a dance only a little earlier or a little later, she would have been safely distant in a formal court dance.

With one hand in his and the hot sweep of his arm around her waist, her body kept reminding her of their encounter out in the gardens the other day. It was difficult to forget.

She shouldn’t have responded to him that way, shouldn’t have let him get as far as he did.

She shouldn’t be dancing with him now.

He moved with the grace of a dancer - or a warrior. He knew his body, knew the moves; the expression in his eyes as he watched her said he knew _her_.

Elizabeth looked away, a flush staining her cheeks. She’d lived with distinctive males all her life - John, Rodney, Stephen - but with each of them she’d been properly introduced or been given the time to get to know them. There’d been space in which to see them as Blood males, as individuals, as friends before deciding whether she wished to let attraction grow.

She wished she’d been given the chance to properly meet Ronon Dex. Maybe things would have been different.

“So, are you considering service to Lady Sora?”

His expression never changed. “Considering it. She’s young. She could do with a male loyal to her and not to his own ambition.”

“You wouldn’t mind Gennii Territory?”

“Never been there.” He tilted his head at her. “ _Should_ I mind Gennii Territory?”

Elizabeth looked away.

She thought of the broken witches she’d met, who’d eyed her males with plain wariness; she thought of the smooth smiles and polite words of the male council, of the distrust between the genders, rapidly turning into the stalemate between witches and Blood males where neither trusted the other.

Ronon had seen enough of that in Belka Territory.

He repeated the question. “Should I mind Gennii Territory?”

This time, she held the long-lashed, dark gaze that rested on her. “I don’t know,” she told him. “I think you can make up your own mind on that point.”

His features softened a little, although his tone was gently mocking. “It’s not Atlantis?”

“There’s only one Atlantis.”

“You were born here?”

“Born and bred. Lady Melia - the previous Queen - was my grandmother’s sister.” Elizabeth grew up in Atlantis court, aware that she was the most likely choice for next Queen and appropriately deferred to because of her caste and Jewel rank.

“Keeping the Territory in the family?”

She looked at him sharply. “Keeping the Territory in the hands of the strongest Queen.”

“Which is you.”

“So far, yes.” She met his gaze, deflected the topic. “Sora will be a strong Queen once she makes the Offering.”

It had been meant as a reassurance, but Ronon’s expression closed up. “If she survives her Virgin Night.”

“Many witches do.”

“Not in Belka Territory.”

“Things are different here.”

“And in Gennii Territory?”

She looked away.

The silence was still and cold. When he spoke again his voice was soft. “Is that why you warned me about the Gennii?”

Elizabeth looked up. He was watching her with a hawk’s gaze. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. Your expression said it all.”

Elizabeth would have liked to tell him that he was better off in Atlantis. She didn’t because she didn’t know how much of it would be motivated by the desire to keep Ronon Dex in Atlantis, to keep him in her court. And in the end, he had the right to choose.

“She will need a strong court,” she said at last. “You could be part of that.”

“In a Territory that would think nothing of breaking its Queen?” Darkness help her, she shouldn’t have said anything, should have reassured him. He was a Warlord Prince, and at this proximity she could _feel_ the anger vibrating through him, a thrumming storm building at the Red.

The fingers of her left hand slipped around his, the briefest of caresses to calm him, stabilise him. She wasn’t prepared for her own instant response to contact with the warm roughness of his skin, swiftly damped down before he received even a hint of it. Still, at least he calmed a little, drew back from the edge of cold anger.

“Sora knows the old ways,” Elizabeth said, trying to reassure him. “As do many of the Gennii.”

“Just not the males around her?”

“Which is why she needs at least one she can trust.”

The hand at her waist pressed her closer, “And you think she can trust me?”

“I know she can.” She held his gaze. After a moment, he was the one to look away.

The rest of the dance was conducted in nerve-tearing silence. And, at the end of it, Ronon brushed his lips across her fingertips, bowed, and walked back to Sora of the Gennii.

His choice. Her loss.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arrogant, overprotective, endearing - the males of her court caused her no end of frustration - but no end of joy. Which was, after all, the way it was supposed to be.

Sora was no mean fighter - warrior material if Ronon had ever seen it.

She had the balance and judgement; the cool head and the sharp eye, as well as the training and build for it. Whatever her tendencies as a young Queen of the Gennii, she was more than capable as a fighter.

Of course, ‘capable’ didn’t necessarily translate to ‘victorious’ in any circumstances.

Ronon didn’t pull his blows. She wouldn’t have thanked him if he had - he sensed that much about her. She was young and proud and wanted to be recognised in her strength as a Queen. And not just as Queen but as a warrior in her own right.

He had to admit, whoever had trained her had done well. She was a warrior of which to be proud.

The young males of her escort had been less than happy when she arrived at the fighting yards and expressed a desire to pit herself against Ronon. They would have preferred her sparring against Teyla, who was again at training.

When he landed the young Queen in the dust, she glared up at him for a moment. The tension about the yards rose, then a tight smile touched her expression and she held up a hand. “They say you were a warrior in your last court.”

“What do you think?”

Her mouth twitched as she dusted herself off. “I think the Queen you served was lucky to have you in her court.”

It was an acknowledgement of his value, if not quite the request for his service in her court. Not the service he wanted, but close enough.

Ronon smiled, pleased by the approval. “Thanks, Lady.”

Curling red strands of hair were pushed out of very clear, dark eyes that watched him, no longer smiling. “They also say you were a slave in Belka.”

He didn’t allow himself to react. “I was.”

“And were the women you served lucky to have you in their beds?” Her eyes were watchful, and he answered as directly as possible.

“Some might have thought so.”

“And afterwards?”

This was the oddest conversation he would have expected to hold with Sora of the Gennii. She was most definitely a virgin - there was no mistaking the purity of her psychic scent - but her eyes were far from innocent.

Ronon wondered if she’d seen broken witches in Gennii Territory. He wondered if she’d contemplated being one of the empty-eyed women who lived and breathed but had no heart, no fire. The soul of them was gone - broken beyond repair or regaining - and they shambled through life with only a hint of bitterness when they looked at males.

He bared his teeth slightly at Sora. “This isn’t a discussion for a virgin Queen, Lady.”

“Isn’t that for the Queen to decide?” Sora asked with a hint of malice.

Ronon returned her gaze. “Maybe. I’m still not going to discuss it with you.”

Piqued, she tossed her head and stalked off back towards her escorts. Ronon ceded his weapons to another warrior and went over to a table that held jugs and cups of water.

Sora of the Gennii was at once a young girl and a very wary woman. In some ways she was emotionally mature, in others, she was adolescent. Ronon suspected it had nothing to do with her being a virgin and everything to do with her being sheltered from some things while being exposed to others during her life in Gennii Territory.

And he still had Elizabeth’s warning about Gennii Territory on his mind.

“She’s not looking for any males to serve her.”

Ronon gave Lord Tyrus of the Gennii a sideways glance. “Isn’t that up to her?”

“She’s not of age until she’s twenty!” Tyrus snapped. “Her court can’t be formed until then.” Ronon caught the contemptuous up-and-down look that the Warlord gave him. “And she wouldn’t want the likes of you anyway.”

The cold hit Tyrus a split-second later and Ronon reined in his automatic psychic response as the man paled and men looked up and muttered at the momentary chill.

“If Sora wants me in her court,” Ronon told the older male with leisurely menace, “then neither you, nor any other male in Gennii Territory will stop me.”

Tyrus’ eyes were full of hatred as he stalked away.

Ronon took up a bladed stick and spun it through the air with whistling viciousness. Properly cared for, the blades could slice through skin, muscle, and bone with nothing more than the force of gravity. It shouldn’t have surprised him how much he wanted to see it slide into someone now.

“Prince.”

Just not _her_.

The blade whistled again as he moved it through the air, before resting it neutrally in his hands as he bowed to Elizabeth. “Lady.”

If his waking thoughts were of service, his dreams were more earthy. He’d woken in the night, heated and hungry, but without the hope of satisfaction - not in Elizabeth’s body. In the morning sun, the hunger was no less fierce than it had been in night’s darkness - Ronon simply masked it better.

Of course, if he didn’t, the males of her court would spare him nothing.

He glanced around the sparring yards, noting that Sora was now sparring with Teyla under the watchful eye of Sheppard. Sheppard also directed a narrow glance back at Ronon and Elizabeth before he quite deliberately turned his back on them. Ronon didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted by the other man’s cavalier attitude towards him. Certainly, Elizabeth seemed amused by Sheppard’s behaviour.

“I see John has decided to trust you after all.”

“There was doubt?”

She tilted her head, smiling. “A little.” Leaning her hip against the table edge, she turned to look at the yards, at the males training against each other. “John is protective.”

Ronon would have liked to ask what Sheppard was to her. While it was obvious enough that Sheppard was sexually interested in Teyla, there was a history between him and Elizabeth that went back a long way.

He didn’t ask. It wasn’t his place. That didn’t mean he could stop the surge of jealousy that seeped through him - or the understanding of the other man’s place in Elizabeth’s court and her life. “He’s a Warlord Prince.” With all that the caste entailed.

“So are you.”

“But you’re not my Queen.” He kept the words light, but out of the corner of his eye he saw her frown and regretted the words. Salt in his own wounds. His hands clenched around the handle of his weapon and he laid it gently on the table behind them. “And Sheppard has bigger concerns than another Warlord Prince.”

Like the Gennii.

He didn’t know if it was just this visit, or if previous visits had been this tense. But there was definitely something in the air - something that went beyond their dislike of the idea of Ronon in service to Sora. He remembered Teyla’s words the afternoon the Gennii had arrived.

 _She’ll be nineteen before Winsol, and hasn’t yet made the Offering_.

It might just be the wariness of males protecting a vulnerable Queen against other males. Relations between the males of Atlantis and Gennii weren’t cordial, although he’d only had hints as to the reasons for the dislike.

“So she’s accepted your service?” There was an odd note in her voice, something like relief or tears.

It stung to hear the anxious note in her voice. Almost as much as it had stung to realise that she’d been going to refuse him the dance last night.

 _What did you expect?_

He kept his voice even. “Not yet.”

“She will,” she said after a moment. “If she has any sense, she will.”

It should have been reassurance. Instead it was as bitter as a slap in the face. She seemed determined to get him out of her court as soon as possible. Into Gennii Territory, into the court of a Province Queen; anywhere that wasn’t near her.

But he managed a nod in response to her statement. She might even have taken it as thanks for her platitude, because when he said nothing else, she went away.

Ronon tried not to watch her as she crossed the training yards to the enclosure where Sora and Teyla still fought back and forth.

He failed.

Elizabeth dragged too hard at him, unaware of his attraction to her.

Sora might be a Queen worth serving, but she hadn’t yet made the Offering and both her adult strength and her ability to rule well and wisely was in question. If she accepted him in service, Ronon would serve her as Protocol required.

If Elizabeth could have accepted him into her service, Ronon would have served her with everything he was.

\--

 _You’re not my Queen._

The truth hurt.

She told herself that it was just sexual pique. She told herself that she had enough dark-jewelled males in her court already. She told herself that Sora would need a male she could trust.

The truth still hurt.

Elizabeth didn’t dare nurse it.

All that morning, she was aware of the prick of resentment towards Sora, carefully hidden from view. At least, she hoped it was hidden.

She feared she’d failed when, at midday, the young Queen requested a private audience with Elizabeth. However, the young Queen came directly to the point - and it had nothing to do with Ronon Dex. “I require a favour of you, Lady Elizabeth.” Sora paced the floor in her solidly-woven trousers and thigh-length tunic. “And I ask that you keep this from my father and escort as long as possible.”

“I...” She hesitated. It went against her nature to offer a blanket assurance; she couldn’t bring herself to give the promise - not as the Queen of Atlantis. “If it is within my power to do so, then yes.”

The young woman nodded, seemingly accepting that her counterpart would only come so far and turning to face her, her hands resting by her sides with quiet tension. “I want my Virgin Night. Tonight.”

Elizabeth stared, unable to help herself. After her conversations with both John and Ronon last night, she was stunned to hear the words coming from the Gennii Queen. Finally, she managed to ask, “Did...someone suggest this to you?”

Sora shook her head. “No. I... I have been thinking this for a while. That...that I would like my Virgin Night to be in Atlantis. By a male of your court, if one is willing and if you permit.”

The dark eyes looked to her anxiously, but Elizabeth was slow to respond and Sora continued. “It is in my mind that this will prevent there being any...confusion when I later choose a Consort,” she said. “I...the males who came with me to Atlantis are my most trusted guard, but I’m afraid that if I show any kind of favouritism...”

Elizabeth nodded, although she ached for Sora and her unconscious innocence.

Traditionally, a Virgin Night was looked after by an older male from the village or the court. The relationship was not supposed to be romantic or erotic, but inductory - a task to be done with as much care as possible to ensure that the witch came out with her hymen broken but still capable of using her Jewels.

Elizabeth’s own Virgin Night had been with one of the older males of Lady Melia’s court. Janus had been gentle and tender with her, and had made her laugh afterwards. When Lady Melia stepped down, he’d accepted a position in Elizabeth’s Fourth Circle, and lived in one of the towns further out from both the Weir Estate and Atlantis city.

Affection might play a part in the choice of male to perform the duty of seeing a witch through her Virgin Night, but it was, in the end, a duty.

“I give my permission,” she said to Sora. No need to let the girl know that other people had already been speculating on the possibility. “I don’t think you’ll have a problem with willingness of any of the males...” She paused delicately.

A slight flush spread across Sora’s translucent skin. “I was hoping that...one specific...” The girl looked down at her hands.

With Sora’s eyes fixed firmly on the carpet, Elizabeth grimaced and tried to keep her misgivings out of her voice. “It would depend on which male.”

Dark eyes looked up, startled. “I would not ask for Prince Sheppard or Prince Caldwell.”

Ironic. John or Stephen would have been her first choices to take Sora through her Virgin Night. If not them...

Somehow, she couldn’t see the warrior-trained Sora considering Carson or Rodney - the male the young witch chose would be a full-trained warrior, nothing less.

Which left Ronon Dex.

Elizabeth wished she could say no, but the choice was out of her hands. Jealousy squirmed within her; she kept it carefully confined. “Prince Dex is not in my service,” she said, a little more shortly than politeness required. “I cannot promise you his service or approach him regarding this--”

The girl shook her head. “Not Prince Dex.”

“Then who?”

\--

“She wants Ford?” Carson asked in blinking disbelief. “Aiden Ford?”

“What’s the difficulty?” John demanded. “The girl asked for him, let him have the honour.”

Elizabeth, Carson, John, and Stephen were assembled in her workroom to discuss Sora’s request. She’d called them the instant the Sora had left her presence, assuring the Gennii Queen that she would have a definite answer from Aiden within the next hour.

Her personal concerns had necessitated this swift meeting.

They stood around the room, leaning against her worktable, standing by the window, pacing the floor - her Blood triangle: the three most trusted males in a Queen’s court, each in charge of a different aspect of her life.

The Steward ran her court, both organiser and financial adviser. Carson was the cool head that weighed in when the other two ran fierce with anger.

Stephen, as the Master of the Guard, was in charge of her personal safety. His duties were to see to her protection, to use his knowledge, his influence and his Jewels to keep her from harm.

And then there was John, who’d been First Escort before Simon came to her service and after he’d left it. The duties of the First Escort were to provide counsel, advice, and companionship when a Queen required company.

She’d had no Consort since Simon.

It wasn’t for lack of candidates - Darkness knew any of the males in her First and Second Circles would have been willing to share her bed.

Elizabeth didn’t just want a bedmate, she wanted a lover, someone she desired and wanted to share her bed. In two years, she hadn’t looked at a man with anything more than affectionate friendship - even the two males who’d warmed her bed - once each - had been nothing more than trusted friends. There were times when she wondered if Simon had taken all her desire with him when he left.

And then she’d looked into the eyes of a Red-Jewelled Warlord Prince hanging between two whipping posts and felt hunger’s hot fingers stroke down her spine. No, desire wasn’t gone, merely dormant.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

The first man she’d desired in two years and he’d spent seven years in Belka Territory as a pleasure-slave. The last thing he would stand was a Queen who wanted him in her bed. He’d made that clear out in the gardens the other day.

He was looking for service, and it seemed he’d settled on Sora.

Elizabeth couldn’t fault him. The young woman had her own strength.

But first, Sora had to survive her Virgin Night.

And she’d asked for Aiden Ford to see her through it.

“The difficulty is that Aiden has never been called upon to do this before,” Stephen said, staring out the window to the view of the estate beyond. A frown creased his brow. “And the Gennii are in delicate balance right now with Sora on the verge of setting up her court.”

“So make sure he knows what he’s supposed to do!”

It was so simple from John’s perspective. It was one of his most attractive traits, and yet also one of his most frustrating ones. He drew a straight line from his current position to his goal and rarely veered from it.

“I’m more interested in exactly why she chose to bring this up now,” Elizabeth said pointedly to John. “Especially after our conversation last night.”

“I didn’t suggest it to her,” John protested. He raked his hands through his hair, further messing it up as he paced across the floorboards. “Look, it’s possible it’s just something she brought up. She _is_ getting to an age when these things start to prey on a witch’s mind.”

“And you would know what preys on a young witch’s mind, then?” Carson asked John dryly. He turned towards Elizabeth, shifting in the one couch that wasn’t piled high with spell books. “Elizabeth, we all know that things can go bad, even with a man who’s experienced in taking a witch through her Virgin Night. That’s no reason not to grant the request.”

She knew that. It didn’t make her any more comfortable about what was going to happen.

John took up the thread, “Sora has asked for a man she’s attracted to - one she can trust in a situation she can trust. That’s important to her.” When she hesitated again, he added, “Ford’s mature enough to be instructed in the process, and if she trusts him, she won’t have any reason to run from him and her inner web stays intact.”

Her First Escort knew Aiden Ford the best, having trained the young man for the last six years. If he said Aiden could do it, Elizabeth trusted his word. That didn’t stop her from having misgivings.

“Stephen?” The Master of the Guard was older, more experienced than John. At this point in time, she needed to hear a verdict from someone who had similar misgivings to her own.

“She’s asked to have Aiden, and Sheppard’s right. Ford can be given the instruction if he’s willing to do the honours. And it would give us the hope of a stable Queen in Gennii Territory.”

The stability of the neighbouring territories was Stephen’s concern as Master of the Guard. He’d be for anything that gave them a Territory Queen who could challenge Kolya in Gennii.

Odd how they all considered Kolya the power in Gennii Territory. Lord Cowen led the council, but everyone considered Kolya the dangerous one. Or maybe that was just shaded by Elizabeth’s memories and John’s animosity.

“Carson?”

Her steward shrugged. “I understand your concern, Elizabeth, but they’re right. From a practical perspective, Sora having her Virgin Night here in Atlantis ensures that she’s not intentionally broken. Her choice of Ford gives her a measure of control - something she probably doesn’t have often at hom. And he might be a cocky bastard, but Aiden is capable of doing this - for Sora, for Gennii Territory, and for Atlantis.”

Elizabeth began grinding up several ingredients into a paste and considered their points.

She’d never really considered not permitting Sora to have her Virgin Night here once the young Queen had made the request. Her chiefest issue was that something about this whole situation was troubling her and she didn’t know what.

The men waited as she moved about her worktable, sensing that she was thinking, balancing, judging the situation. There were times when she’d made a swift, snap decision, and other times when she wanted to think things through. They’d been in service to her long enough to know when to wait.

On a snap decision, she reached out on a Red distaff thread. * _Teyla?_ *

* _Elizabeth?_ *

* _What do you feel_?*

There was a pause, then something like a shudder. * _An ending and a beginning. A barren land. Men’s cries in battle or rage. Bloodshed._ * There was another pause. * _A broken web._ * Then Teyla’s spoke again, and this time her psychic voice was slightly shaky. * _That is all_. _Do you need more?_ *

Not when it had clearly taken so much from Teyla already. * _No. Thank you, Sister_.*

The formality seemed to help the Black Widow ground herself. When the answer came back, she seemed calmer. * _You are welcome, Lady_.*

So even Teyla, trained and naturally gifted as a Black Widow, had the same sense of it.

Still, there was no way to go back. Elizabeth could not refuse the young Queen that small amount of surety against being broken, in a household she could trust with a male she’d picked herself.

Elizabeth had been brought up in Atlantis Territory, trusting the males around her.

Sora of the Gennii hadn’t been as fortunate.

Elizabeth would give her this much.

She looked back at the males, blue, hazel and blue eyes watching her. “John, bring Aiden to me so I can ask if he’s willing to submit to this.”

Something like a sigh ran through the three men, and she realised that, until she’d spoken, they truly hadn’t known whether or not she would allow it to happen. If she’d chosen other to their advice, they would protest and argue, but ultimately submit - at least in this.

“Carson, sort out the logistics of it. Stephen...” Elizabeth paused, trying to consider the possible ramifications among the Gennii males when they discovered their Queen had chosen to have her Virgin Night with an Atlantis male. “Keep an eye on Lord Tyrus and the other Gennii escorts. And try to keep all this quiet.”

Up went Stephen’s brows. “Lady Sora didn’t want her people to know?”

“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” John said.

“And _you’d_ know that,” said Carson with gentle malice.

“Hey, the only times I disobeyed was when I thought the action was necessary to protect my Queen.”

“Thereby getting yourself in even _more_ trouble--”

John frowned. He was a few years younger than Carson and the Steward used those years as ruthless leverage. One usually needed leverage when dealing with John. “I always got myself out.”

“Usually with Rodney or Teyla’s help,” Carson noted.

“But not that often.”

It wasn’t as bad as Rodney and John’s arguments - those could go on for hours, with both males picking at each other - familiarity indeed bred contempt of a sort. But Carson had his own brand of stubbornness - and it ran up against John’s pig-headedness often enough in their roles as Steward and First Escort.

“Gentlemen.” Both males and Elizabeth looked up at Stephen as he broke into their argument. “Take it out of Elizabeth’s workroom.”

She looked up from the mortar and pestle, not sure whether to be pleased or offended by the Master of the Guard’s implication. She was more than capable of silencing both men. “Are you cozening me, Prince?”

Stephen’s mouth twitched slightly as he said, “Just giving you some peace, Lady.” Beyond him, John assumed an expression of innocence, while Carson put on his most polite ‘may I help you’ face.

And Elizabeth laughed in spite of herself.

All three males had known her since her adolescent years, were familiar with her foibles and sense of humour. They knew her and she knew them and loved them.

Arrogant, overprotective, endearing - the males of her court caused her no end of frustration - but no end of joy.

Which was, after all, the way it was supposed to be.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He allowed himself a moment's regret that he wouldn't be staying in the court. He would have enjoyed the give-and-take among the Blood of this court, familiar with each other, and yet inclusive of the stranger their Queen had brought home.

Ronon watched McKay and the Black Widow as they moved about the workroom, exchanging comments as they worked on their respective spells.

He admired the Widow’s patience with the Green-Jewelled Prince: McKay wasn’t an easy man to work with. The Prince was passionate about his spells, slightly temperamental, and more than a little obsessive about the workroom. The Black Widow watched him with amusement and exasperation.

It seemed to be a common expression on the faces of the Atlantis witches when it came to the males they lived and worked beside. Ronon had seen it on more than one female face in the last couple of days.

There was a soft ‘ _poof_ ’ and a white cloud of powder rose up from the bowl and covered itself and the immediate area with dust.

McKay began swearing.

Teyla leaned her hands on the bench, “That is the fourth time today. Are you sure that there is not something else that is tainting the spell?”

“Of course I’m sure!” McKay snapped.

This morning had been unproductive for the two spellmakers, but very productive from Ronon’s point of view.

Ronon had learned not to flinch when the Prince said or did something that, in Belka, would have gained him a jolt through the Ring or a beating. He’d learned not to flinch when the Black Widow spoke sharply, or betrayed her temper. He’d learned that a male could snap back without fear of reprisal, and that sometimes a witch would stare, then smile, then accept his words.

Through their interactions, he’d learned a lot about what was acceptable and unacceptable in the ebb and flow of male-female relationships in Atlantis.

And that Atlantis court was a court he would have liked to serve in.

Then again, he’d already known that.

“I do not know what is the trouble,” Teyla said. “You have done everything that the recipe called for.”

“But it’s not working.”

“That is evident.”

“Why not?”

“If I knew that then I would be giving you the solution,” Teyla said with a trace of sly humour. “Prince Dex, you have been watching us all morning. Do you have anything to add to this?”

He looked at them from his seat on the couch. After following their work, he was pretty sure that McKay had been doing everything correctly. Which only left one reason for why the spell wasn’t working. “He won’t like it.”

“I won’t like-- Why not? If you’re not going to add anything helpful--”

“Rodney.”

“No, I don’t see why I wouldn’t like what he has to say.”

“Perhaps you should hear it first?” The wryness of her words was lost on McKay.

“That wouldn’t make a difference--”

Ronon interrupted. “It’s because you’re male.”

Silence.

The kind of silence that portended a storm, when the earth shivered in wait, and the animals went to ground.

McKay’s mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out. Teyla glanced from him to Ronon, her amusement plain. And Ronon watched them both.

When it seemed McKay wasn’t going to manage more than spluttering, Teyla looked at Ronon, thoughtfully, rather than with anger. “You believe the spell is gender-specific?”

“It might be.”

McKay was still fuming. “How can anything be gender-specific? Why would you create a spell that males couldn’t complete?”

“Why are there only female Priestesses and Healers?” Teyla countered. “Why are there no natural male Black Widows?”

The Prince muttered something.

“I did not hear that, Rodney.”

McKay glared at her. “I said it’s because the female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

Ronon stared at Rodney, wondering if the man had a death-wish. But Teyla only threw back her head and laughed.

“It wasn’t that funny,” said the Prince crossly. He folded his arms over his chest and scowled at the laughing witch, who subsided after a few seconds, then sighed and shook her head at him with undisguised affection.

“Rodney, it is a very good thing that you were born in Atlantis. You would not have lasted long with any other Queen.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” McKay countered, evidently still out of sorts. “Samantha of Cheyanne Territory liked me.”

“In the ‘I’d really like to kill him,’ sense,” said Sheppard from just inside the door. He and the young Warlord - Ford, if Ronon remembered correctly - appeared to have arrived while Teyla was laughing, and neither Rodney nor Ronon had noticed.

“That’s not true!”

“What was it she said? That she’d rather kiss a Jhinka than you?” Sheppard was grinning. “That doesn’t sound like love to me.”

McKay scowled. “Did you come here for any particular reason, or just to mock me?”

Sheppard just smirked. “Anyway, Rodney,” he said, “we’re actually here because Ford needs your advice.” He glanced at Ronon and although his manner became slightly more formal, he was polite. “Yours, too, if you’re able to help.”

He allowed himself a moment’s regret that he wouldn’t be staying in the court. He would have enjoyed the give-and-take among the Blood of this court, familiar with each other, and yet inclusive of the stranger their Queen had brought home.

“My advice?” McKay looked gratified.

The young man nodded. “Sora’s asked for me to see her through her Virgin Night.”

Ronon stared. So did McKay.

“She did?” McKay asked in blatant astonishment. “Why?” At Sheppard’s glare, he added, “I mean, how nice for you.”

“Thanks, McKay,” Ford said with more than a little dryness before he appealed to Teyla. “I... I’ve never done this before.”

Teyla’s head tilted, mischievously. “You have never had sex before?”

McKay barked with laughter. Ford glared at the Prince as Sheppard and the Black Widow exchanged looks of amusement.

She gave the young warrior a smile. “Aiden, you will do fine.”

“Which is what I keep telling him,” said Sheppard with marked encouragement.

“It would be more encouraging if you’d ever seen a witch through her Virgin Night before,” Ford muttered.

Ronon watched as Sheppard poked Ford in the shoulder, unabashedly familiar with the young warrior. “I know the theory.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” McKay asked. He bent back over his text again and scowled at the spell that hadn’t worked for him.

“There’s a lot of difference between theory and practise,” Ronon observed dryly.

“Sora asked for you,” said Teyla gently. “She would not have done so if she did not implicitly trust you.”

“Just don’t, you know, lose your head and forget why you’re there,” said McKay, still apparently involved in his text. “That never goes down well...”

There was a silence during which the three other males in the room looked disbelievingly at the Prince.

“McKay, I can’t believe you just said that.”

McKay looked up, a bewildered expression on his face. “Why, what else was I supposed to say?”

In answer, Teyla handed him a damp cloth. “Please clean up your spell, Rodney.”

“What? What did I say?”

“Enough,” Sheppard said shortly with a glance at Teyla as she turned away to her cupboards and began looking through her supplies.

“More than enough,” Aiden added, more quietly.

And McKay stood there, his mouth opening and shutting, trying to work out what he’d done wrong. He wasn’t the only one. Ronon was intrigued by the tense undercurrent that had sprung up during the conversation - intrigued by it and wary of it.

“Clean up the spell remnants, Rodney,” John said, pointing at the bench. “It’s not nice to leave a witch’s workbench in a mess after you asked her help with a spell. You wouldn’t let someone else leave your workbench in a mess.”

McKay glared at Sheppard, but cleaned up the mess, grumbling all the time.

Ronon watched Sheppard watch Teyla, wondering why the other man seemed so tense.

He understood a part of it when the Black Widow turned back from her cupboard and looked to Ford. She seemed calm, but at the same time, fragile. That image was dispelled immediately as she asked, “Will you require a contraceptive brew?”

The young man blinked. So did all the males in the room.

“I never thought--” The young warrior was dark-skinned so the embarassment wasn’t as visible as it might have been on another man, but his expression made up for the lack. “Yes.”

She nodded. Something in her posture eased - and with it, the mood of the room. “Come back before sunset and I will have some brewed for you. In the meantime, if you are to instruct Aiden in the correct way to proceed with a Virgin Night, take the discussion _out_ of my workroom.” Her pointed look took in all the males, and after a glance from Sheppard, Ford began moving out.

“Thanks, Teyla.”

“You’re welcome, Aiden,” she said. “Sora has chosen well.”

The young man smiled and practically strutted out the door. Sheppard caught McKay’s eye and jerked his head at the door. “You’re the one with the experience.”

“Oh, fine then,” McKay grumbled. “The spell wasn’t working anyway.” He stumped after Ford.

Ronon had little doubt that the young man was about to get taken down a peg - or three. McKay didn’t seem like the kind to let anyone else’s arrogance stand up for very long.

Sheppard turned to go after them, then paused and looked at Teyla. “Do you need me to stay?” Again, undercurrents lurked in the question.

“Does it look like I need you to stay?” Her response was pointed.

Sheppard half-grimaced, half-grinned, then looked at Ronon with his teeth still bared. “Are you coming?”

“I’d rather stay.” He glanced quickly at Teyla and was pleased to sense the other male’s hackles rising. “If Teyla doesn’t object.”

“I do not,” she said, already moving about her workroom, collecting ingredients.

Sheppard nearly growled as Teyla floated the jars down to the bench. She turned her head just enough to catch his eye, and both stilled.

Ronon sensed the private conversation that passed between them along a Sapphire thread. He could have listened in if he chose - Sheppard’s Jewel of Rank was Sapphire, while Ronon was one rank darker - but he didn’t really want to overhear their conversation. Some things were private.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Sheppard said at last.

Teyla turned away, but there was a smile in her voice as she replied. “I expect you to, Prince.”

Sheppard gave Ronon one more long, warning look, and left without a further word. Teyla continued with her work, but gave him one, sidelong glance.

“You shouldn’t tease him like that.”

Ronon stood and stretched. “Maybe I’m not teasing.”

The look she levelled at him between grinds of the pestle could have singed his balls. “If you weren’t teasing, you would be doing more than merely treading on his toes when it comes to Elizabeth and I.”

She had him there. Sort of. “I’m not staying in this court.”

Her eyes flickered up before she turned back to her work. “Did I say you were? Sora of the Gennii will be a strong Queen once she has made the Offering.”

“Like Elizabeth.”

“Not like Elizabeth.” Teyla spoke matter-of-factly. “Elizabeth is a good Queen. Sora will be strong, yes; whether she will be good remains to be seen.”

Although her thoughts echoed his own from the morning, Ronon was disturbed by the casual way the Black Widow seemed to dismiss the young Queen.

“She’s still young.”

“And the young are easily led. She has been ruled by her father and her father’s friends all these years. That will not be an easy yoke to break.”

“Her trying shows that she’s got spirit,” Ronon said. Was he being too defensive over a Queen who still hadn’t accepted his service? Maybe.

Or maybe he was just trying to justify to Teyla why he would take service with Sora - assuming the Gennii Queen wanted him.

“It does.” Teyla set the pestle to continue grinding with Craft and went over to select two leaves from a small canvas bag which she crumbled into the mixture. “It does not indicate that she will be a good Queen.”

He couldn’t argue with that. “Do you think she _can_?”

“I think she can. But she may not want to.”

“Harsh.”

“We imitate the patterns we know,” she said. “And what Sora knows is the cruelty, viciousness, and whimsy of the males of her Territory. It has not yet scarred her.”

“It won’t.”

Her eyes met his. “It may not,” she admitted. “Nothing is certain.”

He hesitated before speaking his next words. “You haven’t Seen again?”

She quivered and he got the impression that he’d asked a question that she didn’t like. “What I see is not certain and never has been. Even a tangled web does not show me that path.”

That didn’t quite fit his image of a Black Widow. “I thought the witches who trained in the Hourglass coven could weave tangled webs to see the future.”

“They can.” The words were swift and sure. “But every witch in the Hourglass has her weaknesses, and visions are mine.”

Ronon nodded. It made sense. He indicated the bowl. “And potions and spells are a strength of yours, then?”

She smiled, a slow, predatory curve of the lips. “One of them.”

He let her continue to work, watching her move about her workroom as she made the contraceptive brew for Ford. Teyla had a different grace to Elizabeth; sleekly sensual with a predatory edge that warned a man to walk carefully or risk her temper - or worse. There was a tension there, as well. While Elizabeth walked in automatic trust of the males around her, Teyla had been forced to learn - or re-learn - trust.

There was a deep hurt in her, too, something that Ronon had only just begun to sense - a resonance with his own experience of slavery and cruelty. It wasn’t as extensive or as scarring as his own experiences, but he could feel it there, lurking.

Perhaps it was why he felt kinship towards the coffee-skinned witch in despite of the caste and training he feared.

And suddenly he realised what it was.

The words slipped out of his mouth, pure instinct; purer folly.

“You nearly didn’t survive your Virgin Night.” Around him, the air cooled. He felt the chill of her displeasure like the first autumn winds, felt the answering anger like ice over his soul. Not quite the killing edge, but close. “Why didn’t they protect you?”

Only a few days before, Elizabeth had said that a witch was free to refuse a male’s interest - as a male was free to reject a witch’s advances. Why hadn’t that applied to Teyla?

A few seconds passed before she responded. “If you refer to the males of this court, they did not know me then. I came to Atlantis court afterwards.”

“Your own people?”

She laid her hands on the table, either side of the bowl turning gently over the bright witchflame. “I travelled from my village for lessons in the Hourglass Craft and was attacked returning home one night.” Teyla said. And although her tone of voice was quiet and light, Ronon saw the way her hands pressed against the table’s surface. “Your ire is wasted upon them, too.”

He only realised his fingers were gripping the bench when her gaze dipped down to rest them. He’d clenched hard enough with muscle and Craft that the marks of his hand were left in the unyielding wood.

“Prince Dex.” When he looked up from the table, her expression was gentle. “Thank you for your anger.”

Ronon could only nod.

There were things he wanted to ask: how she had survived, how she had dealt with the rape. He wanted to know what Elizabeth had thought when she found out, how hard Sheppard had fought to get past Teyla’s barriers. He wanted to know that the male or males who had hurt her had suffered for what they’d done.

He didn’t ask the questions that swelled in him, because they weren’t his to ask. Even amidst protectiveness, he knew that.

If Elizabeth of Atlantis attracted him as a woman attracted a man, he supposed that Teyla of Atlantis inspired other instincts.

He’d never had a sibling - a brother to wrestle with, a sister to tease. His warrior troop had been his friends, the social circles of the Satedan Province Queen’s court his associates. There’d been women there who stirred his sexual interest, and women whose affection he had held as that of friends, but the sense of family had never been there.

If Elizabeth was the Queen, Teyla was Sister to their Brothers.

Ronon envied them both relationships.

He watched as she dipped something in the brew for a few seconds, closing her eyes. The power she used shivered through his soul - nothing more than a tremor at the Red, but Ronon could feel the echoes in the Grey below.

“You’re strong for the Red,” she said when she removed the item from the brew. “Birthright Opal?”

“Green.”

She nodded. “As was I.”

“You were born in Atlantis Territory.”

“Yes. But not near the court.” Her smile was wry. “My people are villagers - humble folk. My parents never dreamed that I might serve in a Territory Queen’s First Circle.” One corner of her mouth tipped up. “ _I_ never dreamed I might serve in a court like this.”

So she wasn’t aristo-born, or even near it. Ronon would never have guessed.

“How did you come here?”

“The previous Territory Queen of Atlantis, Lady Melia, was sick. She knew my mentor in the Hourglass, and asked her to come to court for a dream web. My mentor sent me in her stead and I met Elizabeth.”

“And the Lady asked you to serve.”

“Later. When she began setting up her court.” Teyla nodded. “We had corresponded a little. Her mother was a Black Widow, although Elizabeth never studied with the Hourglass Coven. She was...curious...about the Hourglass arts and we became friends.”

Trusted friends.

“And the others?”

She paused as she unstoppered a jar and plucked a seed from it. “You show a great interest in Lady Elizabeth’s court.” The dark eyes rested on him with a query.

Ronon shrugged. If she wasn’t going to tell him then she wasn’t going to tell him.

The Black Widow shrugged as she dropped the seed into the brew. “John and Rodney grew up with her. Their family estates lie east and south of this one. The others were members of Lady Melia’s court, Province Queens, friends Elizabeth made while touring through the Territory when she was younger. We are, as Carson says, a scrappy bunch, but we serve.”

Ronon just nodded.

In the meantime, Teyla had taken the bowl off the tongue of witchfire and set it on a stand to cool. The scent of the contraceptive brew was faintly herbal, stringent and cleansing. Ronon imagined he could feel it turning his seed sterile, just from the scent.

“Finished already?”

Dark lashes rose, amused, “It is not a difficult brew to make. And I have other things to be done.”

She opened a drawer and took out a wooden frame. It was placed on a part of the worktable away from the brew. Another drawer produced a spool of fine thread, and a twist of the wrist produced a Purple-Dusk Jewel chip.

Ronon stared.

Frame, thread and Jewel chip: all the ingredients for a Black Widow to weave a powerful tangled web.

And the witch to weave it.

“Will that be necessary?” He managed through dry lips.

Teyla looked at him as she took up the spindle of thread and made a slight circling gesture with one finger, attaching the spider silk to one corner of the roughly triangular frame. “I hope not.” Her gaze was troubled, but the resolution was there, unchanged. “You may not wish to stay for this.”

Ronon hesitated. A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind as he looked from frame to thread to Jewel chip to Black Widow. Exactly what kind of web she was making and what it would do. Exactly what she thought might happen that would require a tangled web.

No. Better to leave her to her work in peace.

Better not to know.

Ronon left.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth was not willing to risk good relations with the Gennii on John. And she wasn't all that willing to risk John either.

The night passed without incident.

Elizabeth heard nothing. No shouts or cries, no concerns. Several of the older males quietly and subtly patrolled the house, but there were no alarms and no reaction from the Gennii contingent.

By midnight, she decided that the Gennii could have no idea of what Sora had asked of Elizabeth and Aiden. If they had known, there would have been an outcry, no matter the time.

Stephen knocked on her door just a few minutes.

Elizabeth wrapped her dressing-gown around her and answered the door. “Prince?”

“It’s done. Lady Sora’s inner web is intact, and, from the sound of it, she’s pleased enough with Aiden to have requested his presence for the night.”

It was hard to keep the smile from her face. “Carson gave permission?” While it had been appropriate to approach Elizabeth regarding the Virgin Night, the matter of Aiden staying with the young Gennii Queen was for the Steward of the court to decide.

Strong features deepened in repressed amusement. “He complained that Ford would be incorrigible for the next few moons, but agreed to the request. Not that Sora is likely to be in much of a condition for more sex just yet.”

Elizabeth grinned, remembering her own Virgin Night. “Give her a few hours and you never know.”

Stephen eyed her. “I’m asking myself if I really want to know what you mean by that.”

“And your conclusion?”

“No.” His expression turned wryly amused for a moment before he sobered. “The danger for Sora is past, but there’s still the morning to weather and the response from Sora’s escort.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I know. We’ll deal with that when it comes.”

When it came, there was no mistaking it.

The fury swept through the house like a witchstorm and just as deadly.

Elizabeth felt it begin as she stepped out of her quarters - anger, building to rage, tinged with hints of cunning.

Tyrus, then.

Her instincts were only confirmed when she reached the entrance hall.

There were too many people in the room, most of them spectators to the small group of people in the throes of heated argument.

Tyrus was naturally in the forefront of it all, and both Stephen and John were ranged against him. Aiden stood between Sora and her furious father in a carefully neutral stance of subtle protection that was doing nothing to reassure the other Gennii males. The young woman looked none the worse for wear after her Virgin Night - only a little strained as her father thundered away.

Neither John nor Stephen looked particularly happy - although that might just be the fact that they’d been roused from sleep by the irritation. Both males looked as though they’d hauled on the nearest item of clothing, although John had at least reached for a shirt. Stephen was larger and broader in the chest and didn’t have any embarrassment about standing up to the Gennii escorts half-naked.

However, at least he was keeping his temper better than John. John’s hands were closing into fists, even as she watched, and she hastened down the stairs before he landed the first blow.

Neither man looked up as she descended the stairs, but both were aware of her through the subtle bond between Warlord Prince and the Queen they served. Stephen interrupted Tyrus’ tirade with authoratative forcefulness. “Lord Tyrus. I recommend you bring up your concerns with Lady Elizabeth.” And he let his eyes flicker to Elizabeth as she reached the floor.

Instinct had told her to wear something a little more decorous than her usual trousers and light shirt. She was glad of the formality of the white dress when the Gennii turned hostile gazes upon her.

“Is there a problem, Lord Tyrus?”

Tyrus turned. “Lady Elizabeth,” he rapped out, “I would like to lay charges against one of your people.” He gestured at Aiden. “Last night, this young warrior of your court raped my daughter.”

There were gasps among the watchers, but Elizabeth hardly heard them.

Rage flooded through her, ice-cold and brutal, an expanding circle of emotion that jangled nerves and skittered over the senses like sharp steel on skin.

Everyone in the entrance hall felt it: a Queen’s rage at the insult to one of her court.

Rape was a dangerous charge to make against a man - even the accusation could ruin a reputation, whether or not it was true. That Tyrus had carried it this far - that he was willing to make such an accusation against a male of Elizabeth’s court - was shocking.

Sora had requested Aiden, but the young woman now stood silent, her face pale and discomfited. Elizabeth glanced at the girl, to see if she wished to say something, but when the girl remained silent, she fixed her furious gaze on Tyrus.

“You had better have proof of such an accusation, Lord Tyrus.”

He wasn’t immune to the cold of her anger. He swallowed hard, but his sense of offence was stronger. Still, his words were a little more conciliatory when he spoke again. “Lady, we found this young man in my daughter’s rooms this morning.”

“And that instantly equates to rape?” John asked.

Elizabeth silenced him with a look and a warning along a Sapphire psychic link. * _John_.* She turned back to the Gennii group, noting that Sora was looking from Aiden to Tyrus with a slightly apprehensive expression. It didn’t look like the girl was going to interrupt anytime soon. “Lord Tyrus, Lady Sora approached me yesterday with a request to have her Virgin Night here in Atlantis.”

Tyrus stared at her, then turned on his daughter. “Did you make the request as she says, Sora?”

The question raised the hackles of more than a few of the Atlantis males. Elizabeth quieted them with a thought. Tyrus’ attitude was hardly that of a male who served, but she doubted he was accustomed to Sora defying him in anything.

Sora seemed to gather herself together. She might have been timid to respond, but she was bold enough now she had backup. “I did, Father.” Tyrus shot a venomous look at Elizabeth, but Sora wasn’t finished. “I also requested Aiden to see me through my Virgin Night,” she said, now showing a hint of spirit. “It was not rape.”

The man didn’t look convinced. If anything, he seemed even more incensed by her statement. “And you didn’t see fit to inform me about this?”

She felt the ripple of John’s fury a second before he stepped back into the conversation. “Hey,” he said, meaningfully. “She’s the Queen. She makes her own decisions.”

“She’s still a child!” Tyrus snapped. “And should be obedient to the wishes of her family!”

“Obedient?” John sneered. “I thought the males obeyed their Queen!”

“And your own record of obedience is beyond fault, Prince Sheppard?” Tyrus’ expression was contorted in an anger undiminished by the hand his daughter had laid on his arm. “You break the rules as you please - not even Lady Elizabeth can hold you back!”

“My prerogative is to honour, cherish, and protect,” said John with deadly intensity. “Service and obedience are at the discretion of the first three - and my Queen knows that. Can you say the same?”

* _John, if you take this one word further, then your Queen will relinquish your service_ ,* Elizabeth told him. * _Do **not** stir Tyrus up_.*

The Sapphire psychic thread between them vibrated with the force of John’s frustration - at Tyrus, not at her. * _He’s doing a great job of it without me!_ *

* _So don’t add fuel to the fire_!*

Tyrus was opening his mouth to make a reply. Elizabeth held up her hands. “Lord Tyrus,” she said, keeping her voice formal and forceful. “This is not a discussion to be had here in the foyer.” She glanced at Peter Grodin, who’d been standing back and watching neutrally. “Is the main stateroom fit?”

“Yes, Lady.” The butler indicated the appropriate corridor. “This way, my Lords.”

Setting it in the stateroom would eliminate most of their audience - and possibly give them a situation in which a few cooler heads could prevail. Now, if only Sora would rein in her escort...

The stateroom was large enough for the sixteen males of Sora’s escort, plus Elizabeth’s inner circle. The males were all there, bristling with various degrees of annoyance and fury; Teyla was absent.

Peter closed the door behind them, and Elizabeth stepped into the breach. There was no point in asking them to be seated around the polished triangular table that dominated the stateroom. If she judged the currents correctly, nobody was in a mood to sit and talk quietly.

“I understand your concern at Lady Sora’s decision to have her Virgin Night so far from home and without your knowledge, but her request was made to me, Queen to Queen. I honoured it - as did my court.”

“Sora should have had her Virgin Night in Gennii Territory,” Tyrus snapped. “It was arranged.”

Elizabeth glanced at Sora, who was staring at her hands, refusing to join the conversation. “Then that is a matter for you to take up with Lady Sora in private,” she said. “However, you made unfounded accusations against a member of my court.”

“I apologise for them.” Tyrus’ dark eyes glittered, resenting the apology for all that his words were glib. “What else was I to think?”

“My Lady,” said another of the Gennii escorts, “You have in your court, a Black Widow, capable of weaving spells of influence--”

The escort stopped as the temperature of the room dropped like a stone.

Bad enough to insult one of the males of the court; the reaction to an insult aimed at one of the witches - and a member of her First Circle - would be taken infinitely worse.

Elizabeth cut through the fury that washed through the room. “Lady Emmagen had no part in the decision,” she said. “She was not even aware of the request until after Lady Sora had asked me and Lord Ford had agreed to perform the duty.”

“But a Black Widow--”

“I don’t doubt Lady Emmagen has better things to do with her time,” Carson said, with pointed politeness. “And it would be unwise for you to spread another accusation as baseless as the first.”

The Gennii didn’t look convinced, Tyrus least of all. But he had enough self-preservation to keep his mouth shut, and Elizabeth was relieved.

“This will not be forgotten, Lady Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth stared him down. “No, Lord Tyrus,” she replied in cool, even tones. “It won’t.” Of course, with Sora now able to take up her court, things would change in Gennii Territory. Elizabeth turned to the young woman now. “Lady Sora,” she said, “if you wish to make the Offering here in Atlantis, then the Steward of the Court will set you up with whatever you might require.”

The girl looked both startled and suspicious, before her expression settled to thoughtful. “Thank you, Lady Elizabeth. I will take you up on that offer and make the Offering tonight.”

“You’re welcome,” Elizabeth replied.

There was nothing more to be said on that point: Sora didn’t seem to want to join in on the conversation, and any argument regarding Aiden’s role in her Virgin Night would only hash over what had already been said.

Thankfully, Sora recognised that, for she left after tendering Elizabeth a brisk nod, her distrustful escort following her out of the room.

There were no words of apology to Elizabeth for her father’s insult to Aiden, no thanks to Aiden for seeing her through her Virgin Night - not even a backwards glance as she walked out of the room. Behind her, the Gennii escort quit the room with sullen and suspicious gazes.

No sooner had the door closed behind the Gennii party than John burst out. “Bastards!”

Fortunately, Elizabeth had sealed the room with a Red aural shield as the door closed behind the last of the escorts. “John.”

“He’s right,” Stephen said, only marginally less angry. “It was an insult to you, to Ford, and to Atlantis to make the rape claim in public without proof.” He glanced at Aiden, standing rather subdued to one side. “Although you did good work, Warlord.”

A grin touched the young man’s face. “Thanks, sir.”

“You have my thanks, too,” Elizabeth said. She didn’t elaborate on the advantages of a stable Queen in Gennii Territory - she didn’t need to.

“I’m guessing Sora was pleased?” John smirked.

“Pleased enough,” Aiden retorted with a smile that faded after a moment. “Not pleased enough to defend me, though.”

Elizabeth could feel his distress, kept carefully under his personal shields but still obvious to her. She silenced the other males with a look and touched his shoulder. “Sora is still very young,” she said. “She’s used to following her father’s lead.”

“Tyrus can be a right bastard when he chooses,” Carson offered. The Steward’s blue eyes held Aiden’s. “I don’t imagine Lady Sora has much experience in how to deal with overbearing males. She’ll learn as time goes on.”

“In short,” Rodney said, “nothing you could have done last night would have made Sora defend you this morning.”

John rolled his eyes. “You could have phrased that better.”

“Why should I? Ford knows what I mean.”

“Gentlemen!” Stephen’s voice cut through the burgeoning argument.

“You did well,” Elizabeth told Aiden again. This time, she brushed his mind with a psychic tendril to convey her gratitude and approval. “Thank you, Warlord.”

He smiled, a little hesitantly, but at least no longer despondent over Sora’s lack of defence of him. Elizabeth reminded herself to keep an eye on him for the next few days - at least until Sora and her escort left. Tyrus’ accusation of rape would rest on the minds of many people, even if untrue. She owed it to Aiden to be certain that he didn’t suffer for the attack.

In the meantime, she had orders for the court. “I want everyone to lay low today and tonight,” she said, turning to capture their gazes one by one. “Don’t pick fights, don’t argue with them, don’t confront the escorts or Lord Tyrus or Lady Sora.”

“That’s a little cowardly,” said John, his expression clearly showing displeasure.

“It’s self-preservation,” Elizabeth told him. “And my orders. I don’t want any trouble with the Gennii until Sora’s made the Offering.”

Of course it would be Rodney who’d pick up on the phrasing. “And after?”

“I don’t want any trouble after, either,” she said dryly. “Do you understand?”

They all met her gaze, even John.

“John?”

More than Stephen, she worried about John’s ability to go off half-cocked. He was stronger than Stephen, and without the years of experience afforded the older male. And he was dangerous in his own right - a fact that Prince Kolya had good reason to recall.

Elizabeth was not willing to risk good relations with the Gennii on John. And she wasn’t all that willing to risk John either.

He gave her the sarcastic half-grin that indicated he didn’t like it, but he’d abide by it - for the moment.

“As my Queen commands.”

It would have to do.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was almost service. Not quite, but almost. It would have to be enough.

Ronon arrived in the foyer in time to hear Tyrus’ accusation, but not soon enough to be ushered into the stateroom.

Not that they’d have invited him in.

Out in the training yards, the males were milling about, talking in their groups. He paused and was beckoned over to where Lorne and a handful of other men were talking. “Dex. Heard Tyrus’ accusation this morning?”

Ronon doubted there were too many people who hadn’t. “It was hard to miss.”

“Bastard made sure enough people heard it,” said another Warlord grimly. “There’s going to be trouble over it.”

Lorne shrugged. “They’re Gennii, Bates. They’re always trouble.”

“Everything’s trouble according to you,” another man said. “You thought Teyla was trouble when she arrived and she was First Circle within six months.”

“That’s Lady Elizabeth’s choice,” Bates said. The tightness in his expression and the set of his jaw showed clearly that he hadn’t changed his mind. “Not mine.”

“I don’t think the Lady’s regretted it,” said Lorne lightly. “Anyway, we’re not talking about Teyla. Ford’s going to have some tough times ahead of him after this. An accusation of rape - even if Lady Sora later denied it - doesn’t sit easy on a man.”

The Warlord called Bates frowned. “The girl should have defended him the instant her father made the accusation. If it was false--”

Someone else shook his head. “You know how Gennii Territory works, Bates? The girl’s been kept under the heel of the male council all her life. She wouldn’t know spirit if it bit her in the neck.”

Ronon frowned.

“Easy, Markham,” said Lorne with a quick glance at Ronon. “Dex is thinking about taking service with Lady Sora.”

A touch of fear entered Markham’s eyes. “My statement wasn’t meant unkindly, Prince Dex.”

“Then how was it meant?”

The males all looked uncomfortable by varying degrees, but it was Lorne who answered. “Sora’s young, Prince, and she’s lived in Gennii Territory all her life. They interpret Law and Protocol differently there.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Gennii Territory hasn’t had a Queen in over ten years,” Markham said. “The male council rules it and we hear stories.”

“Witches broken before they can become a danger. Males left without the protection of the women they serve.” Lorne met his gaze. “Lady Elizabeth believes things will change when Sora takes up her court.”

Ronon studied the other man, then looked at the faces around the circle. “You don’t.”

“She left Ford to fend for himself this morning,” Bates said with a dark twist of the lip. “The Lady would have been in there denying it the moment the word left her father’s lips.”

“Lady Elizabeth is Atlantis-bred,” said Markham. “Lady Sora isn’t.”

“There’s only one Atlantis,” Ronon said with dry irony. His conversation with Elizabeth the night of the dance rang in his head - along with her hesitations over Gennii Territory.

“And only ever will be,” Bates said firmly. “If you’ll excuse me, it looks like Caldwell’s going to be caught up in the meeting for a while. I’ll start some of the boys in their limbering exercises.”

He bowed, swift and brief, and walked away from the group. Markham followed him, and another man who hadn’t said a word all conversation.

Lorne stayed.

“You’re not going to train?”

“I think I can skip a day and not be the worse for it.” The Warlord shrugged. “And Bates is biased. He’s only ever served in Atlantis - as have most of the First and Second Circles.”

“You’ve served outside Atlantis.”

“I have.” Lorne glanced at him, and the blue gaze was easy and honest. “There are other Territories in this part of the Realm that keep the old ways, not just Atlantis. Cheyanne and Moiya keep to the Protocols - Korbal, too. But Korbal is presently ruled by a Black Widow Queen and it’s rumoured that she’s dying. No chosen successor but several candidates and a lot of unrest.”

“Which did you come from?”

“Cheyanne. Lady Samantha’s got a solid court around her.”

“The Circle you served in?”

“Only Fifth. But good service. A good Queen.” There was honest admiration in Lorne’s voice.

“Why leave it?”

Lorne smiled. “My contract came free and I wanted to see another Territory.”

The Warlord seemed pleased with the service he’d found here. A Second Circle guard was an improvement on a Fifth Circle anything. Assuming the Queens were good ones to serve.

“Would you reference me?”

“To the Steward of Cheyanne court?” Lorne asked. “Yes. Once you’re there, you’d have to make do on your own merit. Not that you lack it.” There was some friendly envy in Lorne’s voice, but no resentment. The Warlord had the service he wanted and he was happy. “Cheyanne’s a good Territory.”

“Unlike Gennii.” Ronon watched Lorne hesitate. “You don’t need to answer that.”

“If you know it, why are you going to serve her?”

Ronon looked back at the house with its dark red brick and sandstone balustrade. “I haven’t yet said I will.”

\--

He hadn’t said he would, but he hadn’t said he wouldn’t, either. Not to himself, not to anyone else.

Ronon watched Sora polishing the handle of the bladed stick. She worked with an intensity that was almost obsessive, as though she could block out the morning’s unpleasant scene.

He wasn’t about to let her. Not after the talk among the males this morning at cancelled training. Not after the sullen quiet that hung about the estate today. Not after the wary look Ford gave the girl at lunchtime.

“Your father’s still angry?”

“He’ll get over it,” Sora said. “He always does.”

“So you’ve had your Virgin Night before?” Ronon asked dryly.

Sora looked up, wide-eyed. “No! I meant...” Then she saw his expression. A blush inflamed her cheeks and she glared at him. “You shouldn’t make fun of a Queen.”

“No,” he agreed. “You should have stood up when he accused Ford of rape.”

She shrugged. “It was untrue anyway.”

“Most people didn’t know that.” Not everyone had known that the young Warlord had been asked to take Sora through her Virgin Night, and not everyone had been convinced by Sora’s quiet answer.

“I wouldn’t have been standing anywhere near him if it was,” she said, and there was a sullen note in his voice.

“People don’t think that way.”

“Well, it’s done now,” said Sora, putting the weapon aside with a scowl. “Father’s anger will die down in a day or two. He usually sulks, but nothing comes of it.”

It would have been nice to be so sanguine about Tyrus. The Gennii Warlord wasn’t just unhappy with his daughter’s rebellion - he was furious at it.

Ronon didn’t trust Tyrus’ anger over Sora’s Virgin Night. It was one thing for a father to be angry that she hadn’t informed him. It was another to harp on about obedience and the proper way of having a Virgin Night. Ronon figured the proper way to have a Virgin Night was make sure the witch came out unbroken and untraumatised.

Both seemed to apply to Sora now.

Ronon was also tempted to point out that the issue wasn’t her father, it was her willingness to defend a Blood male who’d served her. It ws about being a Queen and ruling the males around her. If she was going to be the Queen she needed to be in Gennii Territory, she would have to learn about reining in her father. A Queen took advice, not orders.

“And the others?”

She shrugged. “The others will fume, but they’ll take their cues from Father.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I don’t want to upset things right now,” Sora said. She seemed resentful at his questions. “Look, after tonight, I’ll have made the Offering. I’ll be stronger than anyone else in Gennii Territory other than Prince Kolya. Then things will change.”

Ronon swallowed his retort. If she wasn’t willing to stand up to her father while wearing the Purple Dusk, she wasn’t likely to stand up to her father when she wore the Sapphire, either. Patterns were hard to break - Ronon had learned that in Belka.

Well, she was young. She’d learn.

She’d have to learn.

Sora was looking at him now, her eyes large and dark and startling in the porcelain of her face. “When I take up my duties as the Queen of Gennii Territory, I’ll be looking for males to serve in my First Circle. Prince Dex...” She paused, suddenly showing her youth and inexperience, then blurted, “Would you consider service in my court?”

Ronon noted that she hadn’t asked the more formal question of the acceptance ceremony: _Will you serve_?

“I’d consider it,” he said, keeping his voice light.

She nodded, accepting his answer.

It was enough - at least for the moment.

\--

He closed the sitting-room door behind him, set his shoulders against the wood and grimaced.

The corridor was empty, for which he was grateful - he didn’t need a nosy servant coming by and looking askance at him. The servants here were much more forward than in Belka Territory. They knew their duties and responsibilities and were unwilling to cede one inch, even if they were servants in a household.

They’d think nothing of inquiring after him, or reporting him to someone. He didn’t know what they’d report him for, but still...

Ronon had questions to ask himself - and answers to seek. And he needed to think through them carefully, because the next few years would hinge on his answers.

Why had he hesitated when Sora asked his service?

It was the offer he’d been waiting for - the offer of service in the court of a Queen who wouldn’t treat him as chattel.

Males were called to serve, and after seven years in slavery, Ronon wanted a Queen he could serve wholeheartedly. He’d hoped that Sora of the Gennii might be that Queen - until this morning, he’d thought she could be.

But she’d hesitated to defend Ford.

No, she hadn’t let the accusation stand, but she hadn’t been that fast to step in to protect the male who’d done her the service of seeing her safely through her Virgin Night. Ronon had seen enough courts where the Blood males had no certainty that their Queen would protect them. He didn’t want to be one of those males, serving in bitterness and harrowing nervousness.

 _I will serve with honour or not at all_.

“Prince Dex?”

She had a talent for finding him when he was disturbed or in distress. If it had been any other woman, he might have supposed she was attuned to him, sensitive to his moods. With Elizabeth Weir, it was purely wishful thinking.

“Lady Elizabeth,” he said, bowing. “How may I serve?” He hadn’t meant to phrase it that way, and winced when she froze.

It took her a moment to regain her self-possession, but when she spoke, her voice was crisp and clear, if pitched low so it wouldn’t carry.

“May I speak with you in private?”

Ronon wished his body wasn’t so good at casting up possible reasons why she might want to be alone with him. His mind was a lot more controlled and a lot less hopeful.

It was also right.

She led them to a small sitting room and turned as he closed the door behind him. “Please, shield it.”

He did so, and turned to face her as she sat down in one of the armchairs. “I’m guessing you don’t want the others to hear.”

“I _did_ say I wished to speak with you in private,” she said tartly. “Prince Dex, I realise that you’re not a member of this court, but I need something of you.” Her hands were sitting very still in her lap - too tense and still.

Not something that she wanted to ask of him, then. “What?” He didn’t bother with the courtesies, his pride pricked, his temper thin. She had the right to ask a favour of him - she’d given him his freedom - but he couldn’t help resenting the line she was drawing between them. Ronon owed her, but didn’t serve her, and she would acknowledge the debt between them, but not his hunger for a strong Queen to serve.

 _Your hunger for her led to this situation,_ he reminded himself. _You lost control in the gardens, too intent on making your point._

His body remembered that loss of control with far too much satisfaction: the soft, glazed look in her eyes as he teased her body. He yanked back the seduction tendrils that his body automatically produced at the memory. _No. Not again._

Ronon forced himself to look at her, to meet her gaze.

She reached behind and pulled a cushion out from behind her, easing herself more comfortably into the chair. “I need you to keep an eye on the court tonight. Both courts - Gennii and Atlantis.”

“I don’t serve you.” The words came out more brusquely than he intended. “And you’ve got Sheppard and Caldwell...”

“You’re stronger than they are,” she told him, holding his gaze. Her eyes were earnest green and quietly resolute. “I need someone to hold them back - just in case they do anything stupid.”

“You think they will?”

Her lips twisted. “They’re Warrior Princes. It’s hard to tell.”

“What makes you think I’d hold them back?”

“You’ve got a vested interest in making sure that the ties between Atlantis and Gennii Territories hold firm.” Elizabeth looked him in the eye. “Nobody wants another Territory war.”

 _Another Territory war..._

The air burned his lungs like fire. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “You strike below the belt, Lady.”

“I have to,” she said, and her voice was gentle. “Caldwell mentioned you’d been in a war. Belka Territory is known for casting an eye towards other Territories with small skirmishes, but the last war among the Blood was in Sateda Territory.”

Ronon turned away from her, staring out the window.

He didn’t see the inner courtyard with its paved stones and potted bushes. Instead he saw a city, razed and burning, while men and women fought the chains that bound them. He felt the blow that knocked him out - too strong to be subdued by anything less than the Grey - and waking up with Ring of Obedience around his cock, an unending pain in his balls. He sensed the emptiness of the land: the bitterness that happened when the Blood were taken from the land they loved.

He could feel Elizabeth waiting. Watching him. Finally she spoke. “I don’t know what happened in Sateda, Ronon - not the details - but we know the results. Sateda’s a dead Territory.”

Pain clutched at his heart, making him sharp. “What does that have to do with Atlantis Territory now?”

“I don’t want a war in Atlantis!” The words were soft yet fierce; she spoke with a passion that jarred his soul. “And if you’re going to serve Sora, you won’t want Gennii Territory to be at war either.”

“You sound very sure that you’re headed towards a war.”

She made a soft, despairing snort. “You don’t know John,” she said. “He could make an enemy out of our closest ally.” Affection and exasperation mingled: she was the Queen, but even the most loyal Warlord Princes could be a law unto themselves.

Ronon had good cause to know that.

“And yet you keep him around.” He knew that comment was too much, even as he spoke.

The green of her glare was lethal. “Don’t get sassy, Prince.”

He retained enough composure to retort, “I haven’t been ‘ _getting’_ sassy, Lady.”

Her lips curved in rueful amusement. “No,” she admitted, “you haven’t.” The smile faded a moment later. “I just need someone to keep an eye on John in case he goes too far.”

“And if he rises to the killing edge?” His Red Jewel was one rank darker than Sheppard’s Sapphire, but it would only just contain Sheppard if something happened to snap the other man.

“Then call Teyla or myself,” she replied.

“What if _I_ rise to the killing edge?”

“Then we’re in trouble,” said Elizabeth dryly. She sighed and played with the fringed edge of a cushion. “Prince, the reason I asked for your help was because you aren’t a member of my court. I need someone who isn’t biased one way or the other.”

He hadn’t intended to tell her, but he wasn’t unbiased in the end. “I accepted service with Sora.” Except that he hadn’t. Sora hadn’t formally offered it, and he hadn’t formally accepted. But she had to know. Or so he told himself.

Elizabeth’s fingers paused in the silk fringes of the cushion. “Congratulations.” She sounded sincere in her approval, but that was all.

Ronon felt angry at the lack of anything more. It was irrational and unreasonable, but her reaction infuriated him. It didn’t matter to her whether he bound his service to Sora or not, and he knew it didn’t matter to her. It scraped his nerves raw. He wanted to mean something to her, to be something other than a useful commodity to this Queen.

He’d been a commodity to the Queens in Belka Territory, too.

Unbidden the memory of the ride from Belka to Atlantis surfaced. He’d watched her with the males of her court, the way she touched them, the way they reacted to her: male strength nurtured by female strength, bound by trust. And he’d wanted what they had from her - and more.

He still did.

Mother Night and the Darkness be merciful, but he still wanted to serve in Elizabeth’s court. Sora’s court would be an interim measure, a duty to a young Queen, but it wouldn’t be the same. Ronon would be remembering this court and the woman who ruled it for a long time to come.

Then Elizabeth looked up. Her gaze steadied him, even in his bitterness. “I don’t need to explain to you that this is in the interests of both Atlantis and Gennii Territories.”

“And you don’t want to be at war,” he said. No, she didn’t have to explain. “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “But I make no promises.”

“Doing what you can is enough,” she told him, rising. “Thank you, Prince.”

It was almost service. Not quite, but almost.

It would have to be enough.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warlord Prince to Warlord Prince, their natures were too brutal for them to stand each other like this. Not when the protective instincts rose too fast in their veins, ignited by spilled blood. And a lot of blood had been spilled.

If Sheppard wasn’t at the killing edge as he and Ronon patrolled the corridors of the house, he wasn’t far from it.

The other warriors who’d been assigned to keep watch through the night were edgy enough, but they seemed glad of Ronon’s presence. None of them said anything, least of all Caldwell, but Ronon had the impression that they were glad of a darker-jewelled Warlord Prince to rein in Sheppard.

He would have found it more amusing if the atmosphere hadn’t been so tense. The males - Atlantis and Gennii - were still angry after the morning’s events, and the anger had only grown through the day.

Dinner had been served in several smaller dining rooms, and people directed to the various rooms. Since Sora went into her chambers at sunset, closing the door behind her, Ronon had eaten with the Atlantis warriors.

The house was mostly quiet. It seemed everyone was laying low, not just Ford.

Ahead of him, Sheppard stalked through the corridors with a bladed stick in his hand and a set expression on his face.

Ronon paused by an open window, deeply inhaling the fresh night air. Everything was still outside - nothing to be seen or heard beyond the usual sounds of the night - and it was the same inside.

A murmur of voices caught at his ears. Caldwell and Sheppard stood at the next junction of corridors. A psychic wave of fear and anger washed over Ronon: a Warlord Prince rapidly rising to the killing edge.

He strode over with swift steps. “What is it?”

Caldwell met his gaze. “Ford’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“He’s not in his room and he’s not answering a summons at the Purple-Dusk,” said Caldwell.

“Search the house,” Sheppard said quietly.

Ronon couldn’t help his surprise. Caldwell glanced at him and shook his head ever so slightly. Sheppard taking over Caldwell’s position as Master of the Guard wasn’t as important at this moment as finding the young man.

And they looked for the Warlord but didn’t find him.

What they found was worse.

The rage blossomed along the Sapphire, resonating brutally in Ronon’s mind. He was the only male in the court who could feel it at that depth - the only male who wore darker Jewels than Sheppard.

He was running towards the disturbance before he knew it.

Others were slower to feel what Ronon did - their Jewels were lighter, but when it washed over them, they would follow in Ronon’s wake.

Or run.

The killing edge was the state of rage that Warlord Princes reached when their anger needed an outlet in violence. Ronon remembered it as a dark haze that swept across his vision. His concentration would narrow down to a single focus and a single purpose, and drawing back from it of his own accord was almost impossible.

When a Warlord Prince rode the killing edge without a Queen or a woman he trusted to rein him in, people died, often brutally.

And Sheppard was riding it now.

* _Elizabeth_!* He was barely aware of having called her - barely aware of the brush of her mind against his own, sensing his concern. He was too busy navigating through the halls, pushing past the people who’d been closer and were only now feeling the wave of dark rage that pulsed through the house.

He flung himself in the door of the room, and nearly crashed into Caldwell coming out. “We need a Healer. Get Kate.”

Before Ronon could point out that he didn’t know ‘Kate’, Caldwell shook his head, realising his mistake. “Never mind. See to John.”

Ronon took two strides into the room and stopped.

She was lying on her side, shapely legs showing bare through the slits of her skirt. The dusky skin was oddly pale, leeched of colour in the witchflames that burned in their lampstands, contrasting brutally with the dark stains of blood smeared across her body. And as he approached her, he was only too aware of the man who knelt beside her, his face stiff with fury and shattered with pain as he pressed his hands against a wound that still seeped blood.

Sheppard was using basic healing Craft to hold her together, but it wasn’t enough. He was also at the killing edge - and Ronon knew better than to step any closer.

Warlord Prince to Warlord Prince, their natures were too brutal for them to stand each other like this. Not when the protective instincts rose too fast in their veins, ignited by spilled blood.

There was a lot of blood spilled.

 _And the Blood shall sing to the Blood._

He’d been a warrior: blood was nothing new. But the blood shed from warfare was different: it was clean, breathless, and jumbled together in the montage of thoughts and feelings that ran through a warrior as he fought.

Ronon trembled as this blood spoke to him in images: desperation and pain, fear and determination, a protectiveness that burned - and a stubbornness that ached in its solitude. For whatever reason, she hadn’t called for help when the attack came. Why, he couldn’t guess. He pushed past that, looking for more important things - for any sign of life - or, failing that, for a sign that she’d made the transition to demon-dead.

It was the most shallow of breaths - almost too much effort to inhale - but even that motion was enough.

Teyla was alive.

“The Healer’s coming.”

It wasn’t enough to draw the other Warlord Prince back from the killing edge; but at least Sheppard looked up in acknowledgement. “How much healing Craft do you know?”

“Not much more than you.”

“She should have called for help,” Sheppard rasped. “I _told_ her she could call--” He broke off, breathing heavily.

She’d fought - Mother Night, she’d fought! If the bladed stick that lay just beyond the limp hand was any indication, she’d blooded at least one.

How many of them had fought against her in the first place?

Someone dared to enter the room, and Ronon spun as he caught her psychic scent. _Elizabeth._ She’d thrown on a dressing gown over silky pyjamas and for a minute, he could barely think. Then he took a step towards her and took her by the shoulders to keep her from seeing the scene. “It’s bad.”

Elizabeth nodded once in acknowledgement, but pushed his hand aside. “Mother Night and may the Darkness be merciful,” she breathed.

Down at the level of the Red, Ronon felt the resonance of her anger as it grew from shock to rage at what had been done to a member of her court. “She’s alive,” he said, not sure if she knew that.

“And Kate is on her way,” she said, more statement than question. She took a step closer, towards the man who hadn’t yet acknowledged her arrival, too caught up in the song of the blood that his lover had shed in the fight - caught up in the vicious, violent song of his nature as a Warlord Prince.

Ronon could understand it, sympathise - he felt the same rage singing through him. But there were other things that required his attention right now. He couldn’t give in to the rage, not yet.

“Master of the Guard!” Elizabeth’s voice was hard as diamond and she never looked away from Teyla’s bloody body. “I want the Gennii males found and brought to my private audience room now.” Her voice rang with dark steel, there was no question who ruled here in Atlantis. “I don’t care if they’re bathing or with a woman - bring them.”

Caldwell was there in an instant. “Not Lady Sora?”

Elizabeth shook her head, her eyes not leaving Teyla. “Leave her to make the Offering. If she was responsible for this, then we’ll deal with that then.”

The Master of the Guard nodded and turned away. * _Keep an eye on things, Prince. Sheppard’s in no fit state for any kind of command right now_.*

Ronon nodded, the barest movement of his head, but Elizabeth must have seen him from the corner of her eye because she turned and gave him an inscrutable look that said everything and nothing.

Then she crossed the room to John.

 _I don’t want to have a war in Atlantis._

She might not have a choice anymore.

“Healer coming through!” The cry went up outside, and Ronon turned.

The woman who strode across the room was vaguely familiar. Blonde and tall, she gave him one brisk glance, then moved past him towards the unconscious woman, her dressing gown trailing behind her.

“Careful,” he said, quietly.

She didn’t look at him, her eyes fixed on her patient. “I know.” But when Sheppard looked up, she had her hands spread wide to show she was no threat, and after a moment the haze across his eyes seemed to clear and he let her approach. Elizabeth crossed the room as well, reaching down to rest her hand on his shoulder. After a moment, Sheppard reached blindly for the hand, closing over it.

The Healer swung her pack down to the floor and began rummaging through it as she knelt down beside Teyla. “Prince Dex,” she said, formally, “do you have any healing abilities?”

“Basic healing Craft,” he said. “Nothing more.”

She glanced up at him. “It’ll have to do. Hold her together. Assess the major damage, and heal what you can.” * _Carson_?*

“Here.” The Steward appeared and she tossed a jar of powder at him.

“Mix a teaspoon of that with a cup of water - hot is best. We’ll use it as a salve.”

“Do you want the comfrey potion?”

She was pulling out long flat boxes - the kind built to contain frames for healing webs. “Yes. If you can find someone to brew it.”

Beckett nodded once, then glanced over at Elizabeth, who was holding Sheppard with the stiff tense pose of someone trying to offer comfort. He dropped his voice. “Will she live?”

“She’s too stubborn not to,” the Healer remarked, the sardonic words at odds with her soft voice. She unpacked one box and practically yanked out the healing web within it. A Grey Jewel-chip was woven into the centre of the web and Ronon felt a sudden chill.

Jewel chips were sometimes woven into healing webs - but it was a dangerous undertaking, only to be used in the direst of situations.

Kate set the frame on the floor and looked up at him. Her expression was urgent, yet oddly formal. “Prince Dex, three drops of blood are required on the Jewel chip - will you give your strength to a Sister in need?”

The words implied a formal relationship within a court, serving a common Queen.

Elizabeth half-turned, still holding Sheppard’s hand. “Kate--”

Ronon interrupted her. “I will.” It wasn’t much to give - although the more formal implications of it were disturbing. He understood that Elizabeth didn’t want him anywhere near her court, but he wasn’t about to withhold help from Teyla just because her Queen wouldn’t have him in service.

His blood gleamed on the Grey Jewel chip, and the web began to glow softly, seeping along the strands of the web.

“Lady?” A servant brought the salve and a bowl of heated water.

“Clean her body,” Kate said. “And clear the room of everyone but the servants and First Circle. She’s alive and likely to remain so now we’ve got the web stabilising her. It would be better if she was awake - we could transfer some of her strength to the healing web...”

His head jerked up as he heard McKay’s appeal on a Green thread. * _I need help here!_ * There was panic in the Green-Jewelled Prince’s voice.

Across the room, he saw Elizabeth’s head lift, startled, and Beckett paused as he went for water. Ronon shook his head at them both. * _I’ll see to it._ *

It was a right he didn’t have, but there was nobody else to answer the call for help. Elizabeth and the Steward were needed here. Sheppard was too volatile and Caldwell was seeing to the Gennii.

Ronon was it, court or no court.

But it gave him some small satisfaction to know that he was serving, in his own way.

At least this time there was no blood.

Ronon found McKay and another man in an antechamber, bent over the young Warlord who they’d laid down on a couch. He looked whole, just out of it. “...breathing, just unconscious... But something’s not right...”

The other man frowned - one of the warriors who’d been at training this morning. “‘ _Something_ ’?”

“I’m a Prince,” McKay snapped, “not a Healer. Is Kate--?”

“Seeing to Teyla.”

McKay looked up, startled. “What happened to--? Oh no!” He looked forlorn for a minute, before his expression set. “Get Elizabeth here.”

“She’s keeping an eye on Sheppard,” Ronon warned.

“No, she’s not,” said Elizabeth from behind him. “Teyla’s stabilising and John’s being given things to do,” she said briskly. “How’s Aiden?” She crossed the room, only to be blocked by McKay. “Rodney.”

“It’s not that,” he said, a warning note in his voice.

“Then what?”

The tension stretched painfully thin.

If the scene in Teyla’s rooms had been madly busy, this one was deathly quiet. The young man lay on the couch, insensible to what was happening around him, and the few others were hushed as they waited for McKay to answer.

“He’s been broken.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth wished she could have accepted him, too. She wished a lot of things.

By the time Stephen brought the Gennii males before her, Elizabeth was deep in the throes of cold rage. It trembled through her like desire or hatred, an icy veil that had no mercy for anything that caught her attention.

This was far, far worse than an accusation of rape.

The Gennii had broken Aiden’s inner web - the inner self of the Blood, which defined his capacity for Craft - rendering him unable to do anything more than basic Craft. He’d never wear Jewels again, never know the strength of the Darkness flowing through his consciousness.

They’d _broken_ Aiden.

Facing the horror of what had been done to him was too much for her right now. She channelled all of it into rage.

She’d asked Rodney to weave a sleep-spell about Aiden, to keep him resting a little longer. Rodney did so without any of his usual protests, and the light in his eyes when he looked up was dangerous. Perhaps not in the way that John might be considered dangerous, but dangerous nevertheless.

Once again, she’d sent Ronon to keep an eye on John and Stephen, and silently apologised for her actions. It wasn’t fair to ask him to serve like this - but she didn’t want the Gennii males dead.

Not yet, anyway.

There was little question that the Gennii were responsible for Teyla’s beating and Aiden’s breaking. Tyrus’ anger had been excessive, even for a protective father.

His arrogance now was insulting and only fuelled her rage deeper. He walked into her audience room, followed by the escort from Gennii Territory, and glared at her in her chair. “What is the meaning of this?”

No honourific, no shame - nothing to indicate that he felt even the slightest bit of remorse for what had happened here tonight.

“You forget who you’re talking to,” John said with vicious softness.

Elizabeth waved a hand and he fell silent.

The males of her court were both angry and afraid. They’d seen Elizabeth in temper before, but this was new. Right now, her fury was so far beyond mere anger that a core part of her watched from within and trembled at the storm that was building in her soul.

The males of Gennii Territory ranged from fearful to unabashed. She noted which of the warriors met her gaze, brazen in their defiance, and which refused to meet her eye. She also noted which of the males had moved with extra care, avoiding the wounds Teyla had inflicted on them.

Elizabeth smiled grimly to herself. For whatever reason, they hadn’t expected a physical fight from the Black Widow, and she’d given them one.

“Two members of my court are injured, one beyond repair,” she said. Her words were measured and cold, and she saw several of the Gennii males shiver. “I hope your revenge was worth the friendship between Atlantis and Gennii Territories, Lord Tyrus.”

Tyrus’ lip curled. “I took action for the honour of my daughter.”

“Your _honour_ has left a male of my court broken,” Elizabeth said with icy precision. “And grievously injured another member of my court.”

“The Black Widow bitch?” One of the men sneered, then jerked back when he found himself with a bladed stick digging gently into his throat. Then he gasped as he realised he couldn’t move any further back - and that the blade was gently slicing into the skin of his throat.

“Be careful what you say,” John said with a cold calm. “My Queen doesn’t want you dead, but _I do_.”

“And you’re going to countenance this?” Tyrus glared at Elizabeth.

John was at the killing edge. Only Elizabeth could stop him now - and even that would have to be done with extreme care. She was only half shocked to find that, at this moment, she truly didn’t care if John slit the man’s throat from ear to ear.

It was the voice in her mind warning caution that held her back from telling John to do it.

 _We can’t afford a war._

As it was, Aiden would never wear Jewels again.

“You countenanced the breaking of a Purple-Dusk Warlord of my court,” she said, and knew that the males shuddered at the ice in her voice. “You countenanced the attack on a witch of my First Circle. Tell me why I shouldn’t countenance this?”

Tyrus’ lip curled, even in his fear of her anger. “You’ve spent nearly fifteen years waiting for my daughter to reach her adult status, Lady. Fifteen years investing against the day you would deal with a Queen instead of the male council.” There was mockery in his eyes. “You’re not going to throw that away - even for a male of your court.”

He was right in some ways and so wrong in others.

She narrowed her eyes. “I never said I was going to throw it away. A Queen has a right to demand a price for the breaking of anyone who serves in her court.”

Even Tyrus felt the whiplash of her words - and the threat of what she might demand.

“That price should then be negotiated with my daughter!” Whatever else could be said of Tyrus, he wasn’t a coward. He’d admitted to what he’d done in a room full of volatile men, and never flinched to say it.

She wanted to see the man dead. She wouldn’t. Not this way, not yet.

* _John_ ,* she said.

* _They broke Ford_ ,* John said, tightly, not turning his head away from the man whose throat seeped a soft trickle of blood. If he added any pressure at all, the trickle would become a tide of scarlet. * _And they would have raped Teyla to try to break her. You know that, don’t you_?*

Elizabeth shuddered to think of it. Teyla’s history with sex was painful enough as it was. * _Yes_ ,* she said grimly. * _I know. But the price must be agreed between Sora and I._ *

The hand on the bladed stick trembled. * _And if she won’t accept the responsibility_?*

* _Then the price will be paid in other ways_ ,* she told him as she rose from her chair and went over to him. Her fingers touched his forearm, not pulling back on his arm, just resting on his skin.

It was enough. He vanished the bladed stick and turned, breaking away from her. She didn’t follow him, he needed his space.

“I won’t forget this, Prince,” Tyrus snarled.

Elizabeth was still close enough to see the implacable hatred in John’s eyes as he swung around. “Neither will I.”

Her own rage had hardly abated, but she waited until John had stalked away before she spoke again.

“You will be escorted back to your rooms,” she told the Gennii males, looking along the row. “You won’t be allowed to leave them until Lady Sora has returned from making the Offering.” She held Tyrus’ gaze the longest. “And you’d better pray to the Darkness that Lady Teyla is better by morning.”

She watched them go, followed by most of the Second and Third Circle guards. Marc Lorne’s lift of the eyebrow asked if she wanted him to keep an eye on John, she shook her head. Stephen would be up to the task of keeping John contained tonight - not that it should be too difficult. John would be found in Teyla’s sickroom, waiting for the best or worst news. The Master of her Guard knew how to handle John in a temper - he’d had years of experience at it after all.

“What does Kate say about Teyla’s state of body?” She directed the question at Carson. He had an interest in medicines, brews, and the healing Craft - not a Healer, of course: males couldn’t be Healers - but very capable at what he did know.

“The healing web was doing its job when I left,” Carson said with quiet authority. “Kate would have sent for us if anything happened since.” He looked at John. “Kate would like your presence in the sickroom, if you’ve the time.”

John glanced at her first, and she nodded. “Go,” she said, then turned to Stephen. “Prince Caldwell, go with him. Run a security check around Lady Teyla’s sickroom, please, and report back.”

It would give Stephen a valid reason to keep an eye on John. And, right now, she needed someone to watch over her First Escort. Anger and grief did terrible things to a man.

The door closed behind them, leaving her with Rodney, Carson and Ronon.

She hadn’t even realised Ronon had remained behind, her fury focused on the Gennii males. Then again, he’d been very subtly ubiquitous tonight, first in Teyla’s rooms, then helping Rodney. He’d sensibly kept away from Stephen as the Master of the Guard rounded up the Gennii for the audience, but had somehow managed to be in the audience room when the Gennii were brought in.

Carson was speaking, drawing her attention away from the man who’d turned to stare out the window of the audience room.

“I didn’t want to say this before Sheppard, but Teyla nearly drained the Grey trying to keep them at bay,” Carson said. “Kate says it’s possible she was drugged. It would explain why she didn’t call for help.”

“And why she didn’t just shatter them with the Grey,” said Rodney.

“She still managed to hold them off,” Elizabeth murmured.

“Only just,” Rodney muttered. “She’s okay now?”

“Once the drug’s worn off, and the healing webs are finished, she’ll be fine,” said Carson. “Tired and drained, but she’ll live.” The Steward looked weary and wry. “Things might be a bit snappish for a while, though.”

Rodney snorted. “A bit? Carson, we’ve got an injured Black Widow who has _never_ given in gracefully when the First Circle males wanted to fuss. Then we have a Warlord Prince who’s caught between the fear that he’s going to lose her and anger that she endangered herself. The only way you’re going to miss the fights is to move off the estate.”

In spite of herself, Elizabeth smiled. “I don’t think that Teyla will argue too much against John’s right to fuss,” she said. Although she quite understood where her friend was coming from: John could be an overbearing prick when he got too protective.

Her amusement was cut short when Carson sobered. “And Ford?”

She looked at Rodney, who shrugged. “He’ll sleep until midmorning. I can’t do more than that.”

“It wouldn’t be worth it, anyway,” Carson said. “At some stage, his subconscious mind will realise what’s been done to him and he’ll try to wake up. By then, keeping him asleep would be cruelty. He’ll have to face what was done to him sooner or later.”

Rodney looked grim - an odd expression on his face. “At least he’s alive.” Coming from the pessimistic Green-Jewelled Prince, the words had a certain irony to them.

“For whatever kind of a life is left to him,” Elizabeth murmured.

“Broken males can still serve,” said Carson. “He might no longer wear the Jewels, but he’s still a Blood male and a Warlord - and an asset to this court. If you want to keep him--”

“If I _want_ to keep him?” She caught herself before she lashed out in anger. “I would _never_ send him away! His loyalty is not in question, Carson. But he may not want to live with the reminder of what he was - and what he no longer is.”

“Well, there’s no telling what he might still be,” Carson said. “I’m just pointing out that his Jewels were only one aspect of him.”

Elizabeth nodded. “And I recognise that.” She took a deep breath. “Go to bed,” she told him. “You, too, Rodney. No spells, no brews, no books - go directly to bed.”

“Do not pass the Landing Web, do not collect a hundred gold marks?” Rodney asked with dry whimsy.

She rolled her eyes and watched them leave.

They closed the door behind them, and she thanked the Darkness for males who sometimes knew her better than she knew herself. She and Ronon Dex had things to say to each other here, now that he’d seen what the Gennii were capable of: what he’d thought he might be able to serve alongside.

“I’m sorry.” The words slipped from her lips, useless in the end. Regret was no help at all.

“You had nothing to do with them.” His voice was deep and quiet, and she shivered at the delicate thread of anger in it. Not at her - she could sense that so clearly - but at the Gennii, at Sora - at himself. “Don’t be.”

There was nothing she could say to that. She could only watch the angled profile of him as he stared out the window towards the torch-lit darkness of the central courtyard. She didn’t know why she’d allowed him to remain behind. It wasn’t to prove a point to him - that the Gennii males were untrustworthy - it was just that she’d never thought to exclude him.

And the other people in her court seemed to accept his presence as a matter of course. Kate had asked him for blood to start the healing web for Teyla. Stephen had set him to watch over her when it looked like John wasn’t able to think past Teyla’s bloody body. And not one of the warriors had batted an eyelash when he walked into the room a step behind Carson and Rodney.

They’d accepted him.

Elizabeth wished she could have accepted him, too. She wished a lot of things.

He was a Warlord Prince looking for service. She was a Queen responding to an attractive man. It would be so simple to mesh the two things into one: he would gain service and she would gain a lover.

It would have been much simpler if she hadn’t bought him from the Belkans.

In Belka, Ronon Dex had been a slave - a pleasure slave whose existence was merely to act as a pretty plaything for the witches in the Territory. Now that he was free, he needed something more - a service in which he could take pride and find pleasure.

To take him to bed would only reinforce what he’d become in Belka. Elizabeth wouldn’t do that to him.

She sighed. So many could-haves, would-haves, should-haves, but none of them helpful. And everything was complicated by the Gennii’s presence and the repercussions of Sora’s Virgin Night.

Maybe she just wanted to believe in the girl’s better nature. After all, as Tyrus had pointed out, she’d invested over fifteen years into Sora of the Gennii, waiting for the day when a strong young Queen might take back her Territory from the male council. It had always been a waiting game, the balance of her hope against the council’s control of Sora, and she still didn’t know how the scales would weigh out in the end.

Elizabeth supposed they’d find out at dawn.

Standing, she stretched her arms and body, wishing that she’d been able to wear more comfortable clothing than this dress. But the audience with the Gennii had been formal, so she’d worn formal apparel.

As she lowered her arms, she caught Ronon watching her, carefully inscrutable. “What?”

He looked away. “Nothing, Lady.”

She paused. Her nerves were too tightly strung to endure sleep right now. And she had here a man who, if no longer a pleasure slave, at least knew the duties of a Consort...

“How are you at playing chess?”

He turned, disbelief plain in his expression. “Now?”

“Were you going to sleep?”

One corner of the mouth quirked. “No.”

“Then would you care to play a game?” Elizabeth wanted something to take her mind off what had happened tonight, something to occupy her mind so she didn’t spend all night running through outcome permutations. A game of chess would do that.

A game of chess with Ronon Dex would definitely do that.

He took a few seconds to answer. “I’m not very good at it.”

“Neither am I,” she said.

Beneath the short beard, his mouth curved slightly. “Then I would be pleased to play a game against you.”

She had a sitting room made ready and went to change out of her gown. The trousers and knit sweater into which she changed were plain and comfortable - hardly the attire of a woman trying to seduce a Warlord Prince. Elizabeth wanted no room left for doubt: this was something to while away the hours, nothing to do with sex or attraction.

It was why she left the doors wide open when she reached the sitting room. The slight smiles of the servants were what decided her on that point. Nobody would dare say that she had seduced or encouraged him. His choices were his own, and his own they would remain.

The chessboard they used was old - onyx and red pyrite. Her great-grandfather had carved it as a wedding gift to her great-grandmother, and it had been handed down from mother to daughter until it reached Elizabeth. He took a pawn of each colour and made her choose fists, and although she was tempted to smooth her fingers over the back of the hand she selected, she only tapped it lightly with one fingertip. Even that much contact was dangerous.

Elizabeth won black, he took the red, and they set up a game and began play.

It was close. She played a strong game, but he played a stronger one, using his Jewelled male pieces more aggressively than she.

One by one, Elizabeth’s Jewelled pieces were taken by his as she sought to protect the pawns that represented Blood males and witches. Ronon didn’t hesitate to sacrifice his pawns where necessary, and each time he left the pawn to her, her hand hesitated over the piece that would finish the kill.

Once, as she moved a Warlord to take one of his pawns, she glanced up at him and found him watching her with something like a smile on his lips, but the slightest of frowns around his eyes. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, but his gaze never wavered from her face.

Unnerved by his regard, she set the pawn down gently on the side of the table and the game continued.

They played against each other, balancing tactics with simple strength. When her Queen was checkmated between his Warlord Prince, Priestess and pawn, she gave him a rueful smile and tipped over her Queen in submission. “You’re better than you led me to expect,” she accused him, lightly.

“I’m a warrior, Lady,” he replied as he reached out and gently pulled the Queen back up with a brush of one fingertip that was almost tender. “It’s a game of strategy.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Not a slave?” How long ago that conversation seemed! Four days, and yet so many things had happened between then and now.

Silence stretched out for a long moment. “Not a slave.”

Elizabeth managed a smile as she began taking up the pieces to put them away. She kept her voice even and pleased. “I’m glad you acknowledge that.”

He didn’t help her pack up. Instead, one hand reached out and rested gently and firmly on her wrist. “Why?”

She didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. But she did look at him for a long time. “Because you were dying in Belka,” she said at last. “I didn’t need a tangled web to show me that, Ronon. You were a Warlord Prince looking for honourable service and Belka was killing you. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

And there’d been the elemental flicker she felt from him; like tiny lightning down her skin. Nothing more than a reaction to a male who interested her. Nothing more.

Ronon’s gaze didn’t abate as he watched her. “Five hundred gold marks is a lot to pay for a slave.”

Elizabeth took her hand back, but lifted her chin slightly. Her voice was calm and deliberate as she said, “Ask any Queen what the loyalty of a Blood male of her court is worth to her and she will tell you that five hundred gold marks is nothing.”

She didn’t let herself look away. He’d wanted to know and she’d answered him. And if the quiet between them was breathless with potential, it was also tense with honesty.

At last he nodded and began putting the pieces away. She handed him the last piece that had fallen off onto the carpet, and he placed it in the box, then slid the lid over it and held it out to her. “I’m not of your court.”

“No,” Elizabeth said as she took the box from his hands. “But I didn’t bring you out of slavery specifically to serve me.”

She was turning away as his fingers brushed her hair back from her face. “Why not?”

He’d moved around the table, closing the gap between them. The scent of him made her head spin, entirely male. Blood rushed to her cheeks. She could feel it staining her throat, her forehead, pinkening the tips of her ears. “I...” Her voice took a few seconds to work again, but she answered the question without breaking her gaze. “That’s not a question I’m prepared to answer, Prince.”

“Then maybe you should.”

His words terrified her.

He’d been a slave for seven years, forced to please whatever witch held his contract. And Elizabeth had bought him free, but that didn’t mean he felt he had to repay the debt - even if part of her desperately wanted to know what this man was capable of in bed. She recalled the ghostly hands that traced across her skin, the unrelenting hunger he’d inspired in her, and shivered.

Yes, she wanted him, but she didn’t want him to owe her anything. She particularly didn’t want him to feel he owed her _that_.

“You don’t have to do anything because you feel indebted to me,” she began.

“No,” he agreed, “I don’t.” And his fingers traced up her cheek and slid down the line of her throat to rest at the hammering pulse in the hollow between her collarbones. His eyes held her, warm and dark. It would be so easy to fall into those eyes and not come out until the sun was high in the sky.

Her hands were still gripping the box, and the sofa chair pressed lightly against the backs of her legs. There was nowhere for her to go, even if she’d wanted to elude his touch.

It would be so easy to lean into that caress. So easy and so wrong.

Darkness help her, but she wanted to give in.

“Ronon--” Elizabeth paused.

At the psychic core of her being, something was thrumming. It began vibrating with a quiver that trembled through her body; not painful, just unexpected.

It was coming from below the Red, a powerful surge that she could feel building beneath her, gathering force like the storms that swept across the southern shores of Atlantis Territory every twenty-seven years.

A glance at Ronon showed that he, too, was feeling it. “The Grey,” he said.

“Teyla.”

She was halfway to the door before she realised she still held the chessbox and vanished it between one step and the next.

Outside, the corridor was lit with a single candleabra with four candles still burning. The servants had looked in on them during the game, bringing them goblets of water and sweetmeats for snacks, but she’d waved the last of them away, practically ordering him to bed. No reason for them to stay up when she wasn’t going to want anything.

What they’d thought of her playing chess against Ronon Dex, she could only imagine.

As she set a ball of witchlight before them as a guide through the empty, dark corridors of the house, Elizabeth hoped she’d been circumspect enough to keep his reputation intact. It was one thing to think of taking a male to bed - and another to wreck his reputation through thoughtlessness.

“Do you know where she was taken?”

She glared at the thread of amusement that rang through his voice. * _John_?* Elizabeth contacted John on a Sapphire psychic thread and could feel the tremors of the surge building below. * _Which room did Kate put Teyla in_?*

* _Second floor, looking out in the orchard. What’s happening_?* He felt the vibrations too.

Changing their course towards the sickroom, Elizabeth answered him. * _Psychic storm_ ,* she said tersely. * _From the Grey_.*

Surprise, followed by anger. * _She’s still not awake_. _How_?* She hesitated a moment too long with her answer and felt John’s suspicions rouse. * _What is it? Elizabeth_...*

She glanced at Ronon who’d kept pace with her so far. Her answer was to both men. * _Wait. It’s coming_...*

A moment later the surge caught her up, power seeping through the strands of her inner web, flooding it with a rush. She felt the flow of power passing through her web with Teyla’s familiar psychic signature, but if it shivered through her core, nothing broke beneath the force of the power.

Still, it was enough to cause the world to spin dizzingly around her as it flowed beyond the Red, up to the Sapphire. There was floor beneath her feet and wall against her shoulder, and she was in the dark, but she was whole. Shaken, but whole.

And left with the impression of a hint of Purple-Dusk.

Then she realised that if her shoulder was against the wall, there was an arm around her waist and a well-muscled shoulder into which her cheek was pressing.

The scent of him sang in her veins, and she felt shaken all over again.

Witchlight bloomed, a tiny spark that grew to a glowing ball, illuminating the hallway and the man who held her. He, too, looked more than a little dazed.

“Black Widow,” he murmured.

“Yes,” she said and stepped away from him. Pushing hair out of her face, Elizabeth looked at him. “Are you all right?”

He looked up, watchful. “Fine. Are you?”

Her colour rose, and she moved on. A quick probe of the psychic plane showed that the storm had risen above the Sapphire, flooding the Green. Rodney and Carson would be receiving a shock right now. * _John_?*

His hiss echoed in her mind. Not fearful or afraid, just surprised. * _Remind me never to get her really mad at me_ ,* he said, more than a little shakily.

Elizabeth couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her as she and Ronon started off again. * _You serve in the same court, John. Irritating her is a matter of course._ * She kept the conversation light, knowing that John was aware of Ronon’s presence.

The witchlight took a wrong turn. With a half-smile, Elizabeth produced her own and his spluttered into darkness as hers led the way.

* _Irritating her is not the same as getting her mad_ ,* John retorted, still speaking on the psychic thread. * _Besides,_ * he added with a hint of his usual insouciance, * _She likes me. At least, she does most of the time_.*

* _Spare me_ ,* Elizabeth told him as they reached the second floor, but she couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips. * _You aren’t injured_?*

* _No_ ,* came the answer. * _But there’s something else happening_...*

Ronon touched her arm. “Stop,” he said, lifting his head like one of her hounds scenting the hunt.

The anger was from lighter jewels - Summer-sky, Rose, Tiger Eye, White - but Elizabeth could still feel the rage along them, no less poignant for that the Jewels held less power.

She flung out an Opal thread. * _Stephen_?*

* _I’m headed to the guest quarters now_.*

John was hungry for the hunt; she quelled him with a thought. * _John, stay with Teyla - that’s an order, Prince_!*

And she ran, already knowing what she’d find.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was the Queen here, there was no question who ruled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the delay in posting the rest of this. I simply haven't had the chance to do so of late.

“We know it was the Black Widow’s web that did this,” Prince Ladon said angrily. “We demand--” He paused as the ice-cold anger rushed through the room.

The wrong words to say to a Queen after what had happened the previous night. Or, possibly, anytime.

“You demand?” Elizabeth asked.

Around the room, the tension rose.

The audience chamber faced north, towards the path of the sun, but it was just dawn, and the morning rays had only begun to touch the east-facing walls of the house. Still, between the witchflames in the candelabras, and the witchlights that hung pale and white to either side of her chair, there was enough light to see the expressions of the Gennii escort.

Grim satisfaction, careful neutrality, and open fear on at least three faces. If they hadn’t been party to Tyrus’ actions, then they knew that their situation was precarious.

And Ladon, who only had room for the injured anger on behalf of his leader.

Ladon was the spokesperson now that Tyrus had been taken away to be seen to by Kate. Not that there was much the Healer could do - a brew for when he woke up, but nothing else. What could you do for a man who’d been broken?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Aiden would never wear Jewels again.

And now, neither would Tyrus of the Gennii.

Teyla had woven her spell with exquisite skill. A jewel chip, linking the tangled web with Aiden’s inner web, giving back to the attacker what the victim had received. As Aiden had been broken, so Tyrus had been repaid for his work.

Be wary of the witches who weave tangled webs.

Elizabeth knew why the Hourglass Coven was feared - she’d seen the concerns about her mother long before she’d met Teyla. But she also knew understood why Teyla had done it.

A web for a web. The debt was repaid in full.

“She should pay for what was done!”

“The sun will rise in Hell before we hand Teyla over to you,” Carson said. Usually a mild-mannered man, the night’s events roused his fury to fever-point.

* _Carson_.* She touched him on the Green, felt his anger subside at little, and addressed Ladon. “Prince Ladon, this is still my court, whatever you think of it. Whatever happened to Lord Tyrus, he gained it fairly...”

“Fairl--!” One raised hand silenced them, although the males shifted.

“A tangled web is not fair, Lady,” said one of the younger Gennii. “The witches of the Hourglass are known to be unstable--”

The growl that began in the throats of several of the Atlantis males stopped him.

“Atlantis has more Black Widows than just Lady Teyla,” Elizabeth told him. “Think very carefully before you say anything against them.”

The young warrior swallowed, but his eyes were still resentful. “We have fewer of them in Gennii Territory.”

Rodney made a noise like a snort of derision. “Well, I don’t know - what else can you expect when most of them are broken during their Virgin Night? It’s no wonder Lady Sora wanted hers here in Atlantis.”

* _Rodney_.* Elizabeth wondered if she’d have to go through her entire court, male by male, before she got them to shut up.

“And when she returns--”

On cue, the doors at the back of the audience chamber opened and Sora walked in. She looked tired and pleased, her hand clutched around the Jewel she’d received.

“Lady Elizabeth, I have made the Offering.” She held up a Sapphire Jewel, and in spite of her anger at what the girl’s father had done - and what the girl hadn’t done - Elizabeth felt relief surge through her. Sora would be Queen for Gennii Territory. With the Sapphire as her Jewel of rank, even Kolya couldn’t break her, and the Province Queens would follow Sora.

“Congratulations, Lady Sora,” she said, smiling. “And welcome back.”

“Thank you, Lady.” The girl inclined her head, then looked around. “What has happened?” She looked around the room, seeking Tyrus. “Where’s my father?”

“Broken!” Ladon snapped. “The Black Widow broke him - he will never wear Jewels again.”

Of all the ways that the news could have been broken, Ladon chose the most direct - and the most brutal. Sora paled. “He--”

“My Lady, your father will never wear Jewels again.” Ladon was almost triumphant in his anger, casting furious glances at Elizabeth while Sora looked at her in disbelief.

“And neither will Aiden,” Elizabeth added into the girl’s silence.

Sora’s hands dropped to her sides. “My father? Aiden?” For a moment it looked as though she might faint. Then something seemed to steady her and she shook off Ladon’s touch.

Elizabeth felt sorry for putting this on Sora so soon after the Offering, but it had gone too far already. “Your father broke Aiden in punishment for performing the duty of your Virgin Night,” she said. “From what we can tell, Lady Teyla wove a tangled web against such a thing happening.”

“She--” Anger flashed in Sora’s eyes. “Whatever my father did was only in defence of my honour!”

“And breaking a male’s inner web so he can no longer perform Craft is an acceptable defence of honour in Gennii Territory?” Rodney snapped.

“Even if the accusation of rape had held, there should still have been a judgement before the Province Queens - and if my memory serves me correctly, you negated the accusation this morning,” said Carson.

* _Princes_.* She got them both on the Green as Stephen spoke, contemptuous anger oozing through his voice.

“And what of Ford’s honour? Your father accused him of rape and you didn’t say a word in his defence until you were directly asked!”

* ** _Prince Caldwell!_** *

It was the only way to yank him up short - and even that was a risk. She’d never have tried it with John - John was too volatile. With Stephen, at least there was a chance that he’d listen. A small chance and a dangerous one - as it always was with a Warlord Prince - but necessary in this case.

He listened. Thank the Darkness, he listened.

This was going from bad to worse. If not for John’s absence, it would have reached ‘worse’ mere moments after the Gennii arrived.

And Sora’s anger wasn’t doing anything to help the tempers of everyone in the chamber.

“She had no right to break him!”

“She didn’t break him,” Elizabeth said, using every trick she knew, psychic and presence, to gain their attention. “He did it to himself. The tangled web is Teyla’s work. But in it simplest form, it visits back on the attacker what was given to the victim.” At Sora’s continued blank look she said, “Teyla could explain it better.”

Sora frowned. “Then send for her now. She should answer for her work.”

Carson snorted. “And she would come - if your escort hadn’t tried to break her, too.”

She stared at him, startled by the news, then turned to Elizabeth for confirmation.

“Lady Teyla is in a sickroom, regaining her strength after being attacked early this morning,” said Elizabeth, allowing only a trace of anger to tint her voice.

On one hand, she regretted throwing the girl into this situation - conflict and anger was not an easy way to start exercising her power. On the other had, she had Teyla injured, Aiden broken and a court full of furious males. Her hands were full with her own people - she had little sympathy to spare for Sora and her escort - especially when that escort was responsible for much of the situation in her court.

“Will she recover?” At least the girl retained that much politeness.

“We think so.”

She nodded, as though that was enough apology for the actions of her escort. But there was a note of childish anxiety in her voice as she said, “Then I want to see my father.”

\--

“There will be war,” Tyrus said, harshly, shaking off his daughter’s arm. “Do you think you can treat us like this and not suffer the consequences?”

Ronon had seen broken Blood males before. There’d been more than a few in Belka Territory, men who’d crossed more powerful witches and been broken for the trespass. When a member of the Blood lost the ability to use the Jewels, they lost something indefinable inside them. In Belka Territory, it meant they lived on the fringes of society, outcast as much for their punishment as for their crime.

Tyrus had lost his Jewels, but he had at least two things left to him. He had his people, and he had his hatred for Atlantis.

“Did you think you could break a member of my court and not suffer the consequences of that?” Elizabeth returned. Ronon didn’t know how she was keeping her voice clear and even, although the edge in it cut like a well-honed blade.

“He seduced my daughter!”

“Father! It was my choice!” It was the first interruption Sora had made since Tyrus began his rant. “ _My_ choice to have my Virgin Night!”

Tyrus turned on her with anger in his eyes. “And your choice led to this!” He turned back to Elizabeth and her court. “You will hear about this from Prince Kolya, Lady!”

The surge of fear across the Red caught Ronon by surprise. Female terror, old and instinctive, and he reached out to her in an instinct of his own: the male need to protect.

He tangled in the web of her mind, his Jewels connecting him to her in an unexpected intimacy.

And casting up unexpected memories.

 _It was like being touched by something foul, a trace of psychic poison that infected everything he said, everything he did. And his eyes were so cold, but not like the cold anger of the witches and males she’d known to go cold._

 _Ambitious, ruthless, dark-Jewelled and powerful, Prince Kolya of Gennii Territory was not a man to cross._

 _The way he looked at her made her skin crawl._

 _And when she touched the edges of his mind..._

Within the psychic plane, Ronon shuddered.

He was no Black Widow, to take meaning from visions and hints, but he’d been a slave in Belka Territory for seven years, and the resonances Elizabeth had received from Prince Kolya of the Gennii were only too familiar.

Cruelty and abuse, the stunting of gifts and the brutalising of instincts, spirit or strength battered and broken, and fear and hatred staining the relationship between distaff gender and the Blood males who should serve them...

Ronon had seen all that in Belka, attitudes carefully cultured by witches and males who only sought power. He’d watched the power plays between genders, dominating instead of cherishing - and the aftermath of such politics.

Elizabeth Weir had seen hints of the heart and soul of a Warlord Prince who held no allegiance to Protocol or Law, and been terrified for herself and the Territory she would someday rule.

 _What happened?_ He’d asked Rodney out on the balcony outside the library six days ago.

And all the Prince had been able to say was: _I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me._

Ronon knew now.

And Elizabeth knew he knew.

Her shock at his presence flooded them both: resonating along the Red with shock, alarm, and shame. Just as abruptly as he’d been taken in, he was thrown out again.

But now he knew Kolya of the Gennii, if only through Elizabeth’s memories.

His mind spun, the worst of his fears relived in her memories. He drew on the strength of his Jewels to give him balance.

Elizabeth barely glanced at him as she answered the Gennii man with all the calm Ronon knew she didn’t feel inside. “I expect to hear from Lady Sora, Lord Tyrus.”

“And you will,” the girl said, stepping forward, her young face determined. “It will not be war, Lady Elizabeth. I won’t hold Atlantis responsible for what Lady Emmagen did to my father, but I won’t forget what she did to him.”

“Then don’t forget what your father did to Aiden, either,” Elizabeth said fiercely. “Aiden gave his service and his Jewels to see you gain your adult strength. That is no small sacrifice.” Green eyes met brown across the floor of the audience chamber, Queen to Queen, and Sora was the one to look away.

In a way, Ronon pitied her. But a part of him was reminded of Ford standing quiet in the hall as Tyrus made his accusation and Sora never said a word in defence. She hadn’t acted, and the lack had cost two men their Jewelled strength. Inaction cost, just as much as action - sometimes higher; and that was a difficult lesson to learn.

“Your stay here is complete, Lady Sora,” Elizabeth said. “Take your father and your escort with you and return home.”

She had the potential for all that she lacked the experience. Ronon gave her that. While her escort opened their mouths to argue, she silenced them with a glance. Even her father seemed taken aback by her sudden authority - taken aback, and a touch afraid.

There was a Queen for Gennii Territory again.

“Then I thank you for your hospitality, Lady Elizabeth,” Sora said. “And ask for your witness now. Prince Dex?”

The world tilted and spun on an axis point he hadn’t expected - not in the midst of all this.

He hesitated. “Lady Sora?”

“Will you serve?”

Ronon felt the shock of the Gennii escort, Tyrus’ outrage and resentment, the flavours of regret, resignation, and anger from the males of Elizabeth’s court. They echoed through the room, too strong to be hidden, too fast to be identified individually. But there was no response from the Red, no indication of her thoughts or feelings about this. After his last accidental foray into her memories, she’d set up her barriers, thick and impenetrable to the male who shared her Jewel strength.

It was her response he wanted - the one response he would never have.

There was a Queen in Gennii Territory again.

But Ronon could not serve her.

 _I will serve with honour or not at all._

He couldn’t.

Sora had made the formal request in public, his answer would have to be the same. “I cannot accept service, Lady,” he said, keeping to the formal refusal.

Her shock was palpable before anger overrode it. So be it.

“You were willing yesterday.”

“I was,” he said. “Things have changed since then.”

He’d lived in an uncertain Territory for too long, watching every action, guarding every thought. After seven years in Belka Territory, he wasn’t willing to settle for anything less than a court where he knew the rules.

Gennii Territory was no Belka Territory. With Sora as Queen of the Territory, it would never be Belka; but with Kolya and the male council in Gennii Territory, it would never be safe, either.

Ronon didn’t like court politics; that didn’t mean he was ignorant of them. Sora might wear the Sapphire, but even the acceptance of the Province Queens wouldn’t make her the true ruler in Gennii Territory.

She hadn’t defended Ford when her father accused him. She hadn’t reined in her father’s ire. And Ronon didn’t want to serve a Queen who wouldn’t protect him when he stood within Protocol and Law.

 _I am Ronon Dex, Red-Jewelled Warlord Prince of the Blood. And I will serve with honour or not at all._

He’d made his decision.

But he wished she hadn’t asked him before Elizabeth’s court.

The perfect young features were frozen, a scarlet flush tinting her cheeks as she opened her mouth and shut it on her words. “So be it, Prince.” And the look she gave him was stiff and angry as she stalked out of the room followed by her escort, trailing her father.

Ronon waited until she and her escort were gone, ignoring the glowers of the Gennii, and the speculation of the Atlantis males.

Then he turned to Elizabeth. She was the Queen here, there was no question who ruled.

She met his gaze without flinching, leaking no emotion as they studied each other. Then he inclined his head. “With your permission, Lady?”

A nod was all the answer he waited for before he strode from the room.

\--

This time, the terrace was marble-warm in the balmy sunset, instead of stone-cold by the scouring wind.

Ronon would have preferred the biting wind.

The Gennii were gone by midafternoon.

He didn’t watch them leave, although he heard that Elizabeth, Caldwell, Beckett and McKay did. By that time, Teyla had woken up, and Elizabeth decreed that Sheppard should stay with her. Ronon guessed that it was as effective a way of protecting Teyla as it was of keeping Sheppard out of trouble.

There was enough trouble in Atlantis without adding Sheppard’s temper to the mix.

Sora had requested an audience with the newly-awakened Ford and was granted it. Nobody knew what was said between them, but the young Queen emerged from the room struggling to keep her composure. She was gone within the hour.

Ford was gone from the estate a few hours later.

Rumours flew thick and fast: that the Queen had dismissed him, that he’d gone after Sora, that he’d slipped into the Twisted Kingdom - what the landens called madness - with the breaking. Nobody knew the truth - Ford had left without even speaking to his friends in the court. The only person who might know the truth was nowhere to be found.

Elizabeth was still on the estate, her First Circle knew that much. But exactly where...? That was more difficult to pinpoint.

Ronon knew where she was. He’d sensed her presence deep in the Red. She was out in the gardens - not the gardens where she’d held that audience almost a week ago, but another. It was small, walled-in, lushly green - and above all, quiet, peaceful, and solitary.

Somewhere to be alone.

Ronon understood that.

He needed time alone, himself.

He’d told Sora that things had changed between the time when he’d been willing to serve her and the time when she asked his service.

It confused him, dizzied him with the speed of his life’s passing. So many things to adjust to, so many things to rearrange in his thinking.

Less than a day had passed between her informal and formal requests. In that time, his perspective had changed.

Seven days had passed since Elizabeth had taken him from Belka Territory. In that time, his life had changed.

He’d been bought from slavery to freedom. He’d looked for a Queen to serve only to be rejected. He’d seen the Gennii arrive and entertained service with Sora, only to reject it when she offered. He’d seen two men broken and two Territories barely hold back from war.

Earlier, in the house, someone had mentioned the tour around the Territory. From what was said, Ronon gathered it was going ahead anyway - something to take Elizabeth’s mind from contemplation of Warlord Aiden Ford, from Sora of the Gennii, of Atlantis and Gennii Territories at war.

 _You should be able to find service to your satisfaction._

A bitter smile touched his lips.

He’d told Elizabeth that all he wanted was a Queen to serve - a witch he could serve with what he had and who he was. He’d hoped to find a Queen who didn’t fear his strength, who would see him as a person rather than a thing, and who wouldn’t use him beyond what he could bear. He’d spoken the truth.

What he hadn’t said was that he’d found the Queen he wanted to serve.

 _Will you serve?_

What he could tell was that the Queen he wanted to serve didn’t want his service. And he wasn’t so sure that he could bring himself to offer himself and face her rejection. The thought of her refusing him, with all kindness but distant and empty, taunted him and he shuddered.

No. Atlantis court was not for him. He would have to find service elsewhere.

“Are you also convinced that you could have stopped one part of what transpired here these last few days?”

He started at the tart words, acid in the golden sunlight. “No,” he said as he turned to face the woman who’d come out onto the terrace, disguising her caste and nature as neatly as any hunter he’d known. “But then, I’m not a Black Widow capable of weaving a tangled web.”

 _Ware the witches of the Hourglass coven_ , it was said. Still, in the last few days, Ronon had seen both the kind and the terrible in Teyla Emmagen of Atlantis, and didn’t fear the terrible for the kindness. It was all about a balance of trust.

“Even Black Widows don’t always see the whole picture,” Teyla said with regret in her voice. “As I am witness.”

“You did what you could.”

“Not enough,” she responded. “And yet, we do what we can and hope that it is enough.”

He hadn’t yet said this to anyone. “Everything has a price.” The price of Sora’s Virgin Night had been the breaking of both Ford and her father.

She looked at him. “Yes,” she said sadly, leaning down on the balcony railing. “Everything has a price.”

Ronon eyed her. She was clad in an odd overcoat of leather strips that were seamed together with strips of animal hide. It looked at once both oddly outlandish and yet very comfortable as she tugged it around her and lifted her face to the afternoon sun.

Two days ago, she’d been a hale and healthy witch, slim but solid. Now, she looked fragile, the bones of her closer to the surface, her skin a thin covering of the flesh beneath. She’d been burned out by the use of her Jewel, the injury done to her, and her body’s need to heal.

And a Warlord Prince’s first and final instincts were to protect the distaff gender.

“Should you be out of bed?”

The glare she shot him was as acid as her greeting. “Mind your own business, Prince.”

Ronon grinned in spite of himself. “So Sheppard doesn’t know you’re out here?”

“And you should not tell him,” Teyla said immediately. She shot him a sullen look. “The healing web has done its job. His fussing is unnecessary.”

“Not to him,” said Ronon. He imagined that the other Warlord Prince had a difficult time of it, persuading Teyla to let him pamper her even a little. Sheppard would relish the chance while it lasted.

The look she gave him was just short of a glare as she muttered, “And they wonder why Elizabeth has vanished.”

“But you know where she is.”

“As do you,” she replied without hesitation. “But we are neither of us going to tell.”

He eyed her. “You sound sure about that.”

The gaze that she turned on him was both knowing and oddly innocent. “I am. A Queen’s state of mind is at stake. I do not think you hold that lightly, Prince.”

She was right.

“How is she?” He shouldn’t ask.

“I do not hold my Queen’s state of mind lightly either,” she said. Ronon looked away. The question wasn’t his to ask. He took a slow, deep breath, and was surprised when Teyla shifted, catching his eye again. This time, she was smiling slightly as she spoke. “If you wish to know how Elizabeth fares, then you should seek her out yourself.”

In the silence after her statement, she tilted her head a little in query before she turned and started back towards the door.

Ronon tried to gather his scattered thoughts. The only thing he could think of to say was: “And interrupt a Queen’s privacy?”

Teyla paused and turned her head enough that she could see him out of the corner of her eye. “There are many ways for Elizabeth to escape the notice of her court if she wishes true privacy. However, there are also times when one goes apart so that one may be found.” Her cheek curved in a smile he couldn’t quite see.

“The way you’re waiting for Sheppard to find you?”

Now she turned enough for him to see the definite curve of her mouth. “Maybe,” she said with a laugh before passing smoothly through the door to the library without touching the handle.

Ronon shook his head and wished Sheppard joy of the Black Widow. Infuriating woman.

In spite of her words, it took him a while to stir from the terrace.

 _You should seek her out yourself._

He wanted to. He could feel her anger and grief resonating faintly through her shields in the Red. His only hesitation was that he didn’t want to go looking for her, only to be rejected again.

In the end, it came down to a choice between her needs and his fear. No choice at all, really. She was a Queen after all, and he was just a Warlord Prince.

The sun was touching the top of the trees when he went looking for Elizabeth, hoping that she really did want to be found.


	16. Chapter 16

The garden was small and old and she’d found it just after her parents’ deaths. Cleaning it up herself bit by bit had been cathartic at a difficult time, and if the gardeners knew where it was, they didn’t tell her court.

Elizabeth came here when she needed solitude, uninterrupted by anyone.

She needed solitude now.

A small stream of water trickled into the pond, swirling in a black-green current around the basin before trickling out into the woods through a channel that passed out through the wall. The liquid sound gave her something to concentrate on, something to fill her ears and occupy her mind.

 _More than anything, the Queens and their courts exemplify the core of the Blood: service with honour, trust with protection, nurturing with love. Destroy that and we destroy each other._

Aiden was gone. She’d said all the things she could think to say, and he’d sat as silent and unlaughing as he’d never been before.

Broken. The term meant the inner web - a witch or Blood male’s psychic strength, defined by the darkness of the Jewel they wore.

Looking at Aiden, Elizabeth had found the term frighteningly apt. Broken in web, broken in spirit - Aiden wouldn’t even meet her gaze when she tried to talk to him. It was as though he was someone else entirely, a far cry from the mischievous young man she’d taken into her court.

It wasn’t until she’d fallen silent, with nothing more to say, that he’d looked up at her. The fear in his expression stung like a needle in her flesh - but even that fear didn’t hurt as much as his words.

“ _Lady, it was an honour to serve you._ ”

He’d stood, bowed once, pressed something into her hand, and left.

She lifted her hand and watched the Purple-Dusk Jewel pendant gleam dully in the growing shadows of the evening. Aiden had left it with her - a testament to what he’d been and never would be again.

Elizabeth grieved.

The wind lightly rustled the leaves of the ornamental maple that grew in the corner of the garden as the evening breeze passed through. The garden itself was well-shaded by the giant oak that in the next courtyard and the tall trees at the edge of the woods, and the plants she’d grown here had been chosen for their ability to grow in shade.

It was a good garden for thinking in, a good garden to escape to.

She knew John was looking for her, although his frustration eased after a little while and Elizabeth supposed he’d found Teyla after the witch escaped her sickroom. She hoped Teyla was letting him fuss - if nothing else, it would give Elizabeth some space from her First Escort. She could feel Carson’s concern but he wasn’t yet worried, and Stephen was quietly fretting over her absence but he understood she needed time and space.

If they knew of her sanctuary, at least they didn’t bother her when she was here.

Not so for Ronon Dex.

She heard his bootsteps on the courtyard pavings of the next garden before he appeared at the opening in the crumbling brick wall. She’d set a spell on the wall, so it would appear solid to a lighter Jewel, and overgrown with the roses that twined themselves thickly over the lintel of the opening.

Ronon didn’t wear a lighter Jewel.

So much for sanctuary.

“Lady.”

“Prince.” Elizabeth refused to look around as he paused in the entrance to the garden, taking in the grassed area. “Don’t you know when not to disturb a Queen?”

Her snappish retort didn’t disturb him; instead, he crossed the grass, treading with all the delicacy of a cat, and sat down on the bench beside her, facing in the opposite direction. “Evidently not.”

She resented his presence - he was close enough that the scent of him in her nostrils was unavoidable and her body tried to respond to it.

In the midst of the chaos of the Gennii departure and the loss of a loyal Warlord from her court, it was both embarrassing and trivial to react to him so ardently. Yet she did.

To distract herself, she curled her fingers around the pendant and spoke. “I should have seen this coming. I should have guessed that Tyrus would take measures.”

“Even Teyla only guessed at part of it.”

She looked up then. “Teyla’s not the Queen.”

“No,” he agreed.

There seemed to be nothing to say to him. Then the Purple-Dusk pendant gleamed in her lap and she began speaking.

“I remember the day John brought him to my notice,” she said. She’d only just set up her court and was reviewing the applicants with the help of her newly-appointed First Circle. “He was twenty, and nervous at being presented to me, but once he became more comfortable, he cracked a few jokes...”

John had presented the dark-skinned young Warlord in the privacy of her office, and Aiden had been a little intimidated at first, but swiftly began to warm to the others. And they had warmed to him - even Carson, who had found Aiden’s cocky assurance irritating.

She stared at the Jewel in her hand. “I should have protected him better.”

The males served and their Queen protected them. A delicate balance, but one worth preserving. The responsibility went both ways - a fact that the witches in Belka and the males in Gennii seemed to have forgotten.

It had been her responsibility to protect Aiden, and she had failed - if she’d been more vigilant, more wary, more careful with him, then Tyrus would never have reached him and his inner web would never have been broken.

“How?”

His question broke into her guilt and she took a moment to gather her thoughts and answer him.

“I knew Tyrus was angry--”

“But not that he would break Ford.”

“Teyla saw it. I should have paid more attent--”

“She saw a broken inner web. That’s all.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ronon turn towards her, crooking his leg on the bench “Look at it like that and _she_ should have paid more attention. She _is_ the one with Hourglass training.”

Anger was immediate and fiercely protective, a surge of defence against his implied criticism of one of her First Circle. “Teyla did what she could - visions aren’t her strength. And I’m the Queen.” That made it her responsibility.

“You’re only responsible for the behaviour of your own court, Lady.” He said, almost as though he’d picked up on her thought. Which was possible - they both wore the Red, and she wasn’t used to shielding, but she wasn’t leaking her thoughts either. “Aiden Ford behaved according to Protocol.”

“And the Gennii didn’t?” She wished she hadn’t laid out the challenge, his rejection of Sora only too clear in her mind. The service he’d hoped for hadn’t been to his satisfaction. Elizabeth regarded him sharply. “Is that why didn’t you go with Sora?”

She was angry and she didn’t know why. On behalf of the young witch? _At_ the young witch for not being the Queen Ronon had been seeking?

It confused her.

He stared at a point somewhere between them for a while, long enough for her to wonder if she’d said too much. “I hoped to find a Queen worth serving,” he said at last. “Here in Atlantis, in Gennii Territory - wherever I could find someone who would respect my strength. Not just use me for her own ends.”

His yearning had been obvious enough. What she didn’t understand was why he’d given up on service in Gennii Territory. He’d seemed very intent on it only a few days ago.

“Sora’s young. She could have learned--” She stopped when he shook his head.

“Should have trusted my instincts,” he said at last. “They were right.”

Elizabeth wanted to ask what instincts those were but didn’t dare. As it was, there was a resignation in him at odds with the stubborn, angry slave he’d been only a week ago, at odds with the determination of the last few days, seeking a Queen to serve. It was as though the fire had dimmed within him, banked for the moment.

She was sorry he wouldn’t find the service he wanted - at least, not with Sora. But there were other Queens and other courts who would take his service the instant he offered. “You’ll find service elsewhere,” she said, instinctively reaching out to touch him on the hand and wondering why he flinched at her words. “Teyla was right - any of the Province Queens would be glad to have you in their court--”

Her fingers touched his skin and she was caught up in a complex web of emotions, transmitted through the Jewels they wore.

Aching hunger and trembling turmoil resonated through the Red, from his inner web to hers. She felt the way his senses stirred, rousing when she touched him, a response she han’t expected.

His fingers closed around her wrist, gentle but inexorable. She wouldn’t get them off short of using Craft - and she didn’t want to. Not against him.

“You never answered my question last night.”

She looked up at him, startled and disoriented by his response. “What? Which question?”

“You bought my contract from Heleri,” he said. Elizabeth watched as his eyes scanned her face, watching for even the slightest cues. “Five hundred gold marks for a male who wasn’t of your court, who didn’t serve you - who didn’t even _like_ you.”

 _I couldn’t leave you there._ A Warlord Prince yearning for something more, denied it in a Territory that was willing to use his hard cock, but not allow him the comfort and protection he’d craved. Elizabeth would no more willingly have left him there than she would chop off her own hand.

“You wanted freedom,” she said, huskily.

“So did another thousand slaves in Belka.” Ronon watched her. “You bought my contract.”

He was fishing for something. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “Do you want me to say that it was because I was attracted to you? Is that what you’re waiting for?” Her words had more bitchiness than she’d intended, but it was said.

“No,” he said after a moment. “But it helps.”

“Ronon,” she began, then stopped. This was so embarrassing. “Prince Dex--”

“I prefer Ronon.”

“You would.” She took a deep breath. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“ _This_ isn’t about owing anything.” The fingers that encircled her wrist didn’t relent.

Between the look he was giving her and the hunger she could feel resonating through the Red web from him to her...

She wished she could be sure that her own desire wasn’t feeding back to him. That wouldn’t be fair to him - yet another Queen who only wanted him in her bed.

 _Except you don’t_ only _want him in your bed,_ she thought to herself behind the privacy of her own personal barriers.

 _Do you think that will matter to him?_

Elizabeth sighed at her warring thoughts. The simplest explanation was probably the best one. “You’re responding to the Queen who gave you your freedom back, Prince - nothing more.”

If it was hard to meet his eyes as she said that, it was harder to think as he tugged on her wrist, pulling her towards him.

He exerted no undue force. Elizabeth knew that if she pulled back, he would let her go.

She didn’t pull back.

Something in her will was broken - as broken as Aiden, as broken as Tyrus. She gave no resistance as he drew her into his lap and settled her against his thigh.

Elizabeth knew she should protest, knew she should stop this, but the warmth of the body that curved protectively towards her was intoxicating in its proximity. It had been a while since she’d last had a lover.

Desire strained her self-control as he brushed his lips through the curls of her hair until his mouth hovered by her ear. “So why are you responding to me?”

Elizabeth quivered and knew he felt it, too. This close, with both of them wearing the Red, and after such turmoil of the day, there was no hiding her own craving. And she owed him the truth. “Because I haven’t had a steady lover in two years,” she said at last. “And you’re male, and handsome, and attractive.” Her laughter caught in her throat, bitter with her own anger and guilt. “What witch wouldn’t respond to that?”

“You could have any male in your court.”

Despair took her like a storm.

She’d told Aiden that she could give him protection and he’d ended up broken.

She’d told Ronon that she wouldn’t use him the way they had in Belka and what was she doing now?

Her own bitterness formed the words before she could censor them. “Why would I want any man when I could have a Warlord Prince trained as a pleasure slave?”

Anger blossomed along the Red, flaring in the dark of his eyes. She’d meant him to be hurt, and he was. But he was also hungry, and the hunger didn’t abate at her words. Instead, it sharpened, found a focus, and she felt the resolve crystallise within him.

He wanted to give her something - needed to repay his debt. Elizabeth could feel that as clearly as she could feel his hand on her wrist, his cheek against her hair.

“Then use me.”

Elizabeth caught her imagination before it could provide her with graphic images of him touching her, tasting her, moving in her... The ache thrust through her, sharp and sweet. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not a slave to be used that way!”

“And if I offer it?”

She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, trying to make him understand. “I didn’t bring you out of Belka for that, Prince.”

“Maybe not,” he said. A moment later, she shivered as his hand ran lightly along her thigh, and felt the corresponding quiver in his own body. “I still offer it,”

If Elizabeth was fighting desire, so was he. And beyond desire, her psychic senses were telling her that every pore of him, every instinct was urging his total and unconditional surrender.

The hunger wasn’t hers alone.

With that knowledge, her own instincts wanted to accept that surrender, to take it with both hands and promise it protection and honour - the response of a Queen to the submission of a male.

What chance did Elizabeth have against the need of a Warlord Prince?

 _You can’t take this,_ she reminded herself, desperate. _He doesn’t understand that there is no debt between you._

Slowly, inch by inch, she regained control over her emotions, reining them in with brutal efficiency. And finally, she looked into his face, mere inches away. It took a lot of courage to meet his gaze. “You don’t owe me anything, Prince.”

Something like regret tinged his words. “Honest desire?”

“You don’t owe me that, either.”

There was nothing between them. Nothing that he needed to repay her, nothing that she could give him that was untainted.

In spite of the shortcomings of Gennii Territory, maybe it would have been best if Ronon had gone with them. But the service was his, and so, too, must the choice be.

Ronon didn’t look away.

Instead, he lifted one finger to her mouth, touching the corner and stroking the tip along the curve of her lower lip as he said. “You have it anyway.”

Elizabeth looked into the long-lashed eyes regarding her with such dark intensity. Honest desire. Sexual submission. The erotic possibilities quivered within her, blossoming like buds on the tree with the coming of spring.

She could sense the truth of it in their connection through the Red web. He was making sure she was feeling the truth of it. There were no debts between them, just the chord that need struck between them in resonating hunger.

He would let her use him, would allow her to have this much of him, purely for desire’s sake.

Anything more, she would have to earn.

The choice was hers.

She kissed the tip of his finger in answer.

 _Yes._


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was Ronon Dex, Red-Jewelled Warlord Prince of the Blood. And he would serve with honour.

In the moment before she kissed his fingertip, Ronon wondered if he’d done a stupid thing in pushing her so far.

His finger rested against the soft cushions of her lips, savouring the velvet of her skin. The seconds stretched out, marked by the pounding of blood in his veins and the song of the water running over rocks, and Ronon waited for a response - acceptance, rejection - anything!

Then her lashes dipped down and her lips moved lightly against his skin. A kiss to indicate acceptance of his interest - and more. Not content to leave it there, her lips parted and she delicately licked the pad of his index finger in a soft, sensual caress and Ronon sucked in a slow, harsh breath.

Acceptance and a lot more - the pleasure of reclaiming what he’d lost in Belka: his own right to choose a lover and be chosen by her in return.

Desire leaped, swallowing him whole and he shivered as she drew his head down to hers, sure of what she wanted now she knew he was willing.

Ronon didn’t think he’d ever been more willing before in his life.

Her lips trailed his cheek, cool and fresh as they tickled his beard, but when they found his mouth, her kisses were anything but cool. She knew what she wanted, and Ronon gave in to the headier urgings of desire without a fight, drawing her in to him as their kisses grew more bold and they familiarised themselves with the territory they explored.

Ronon wasn’t sure what he expected of her. Modesty? Shyness? He should have known better. This wasn’t a nervous girl on her Virgin Night, but a woman who knew what she liked and wasn’t ashamed to take it once she was sure of his compliance.

His jacket and shirt were shed and discarded, tossed into the rapidly-darkening shadows, but when she tried to straddle him, he turned her around so she was facing the other way. Her arched brow over one shoulder turned into a gasp when a ghostly hand pressed gently at her belly, easing her back against him.

 _Not so fast._

Ronon was going to make this last as long as he could.

On his thighs, her hands clenched involuntarily, but she tilted her head back when he trailed his lips along her throat and up to her mouth. Their kisses were hot and slow, and ached in Ronon’s body. He ran his hands lightly up her sides, pushing up the linen of her shirt, but not yet willing to take it off.

There were other things he wanted to do.

The first touch was light against her throat, nothing more than the gentlest of caresses. It slipped down her shoulder, moving along the inside of her arm, a ghostly finger that stirred her senses, exciting her pulse. Her mouth paused on his, and he kissed her again.

Then he traced the ghost hands down her shoulders and over her breasts. She made a soft exclamation that was lost in a moan as the fingers lightly fondled her nipples. Ronon sucked in a sharp breath as she shifted against his groin, but if the look she gave him was heated, her smile was wicked. “Can’t you take it, Prince?”

With a growl, he took her mouth again, and felt her pant as the ghostly hands began teasing her in earnest.

In the past, he’d used this as a means of arousing the women he’d been forced to bed without needing to touch them more than he had to.

This time, Ronon fully intended to let his hands and mouth follow everywhere that the ghost hands went. Eventually.

Before that, he would be very sure she was satisfied.

He let the ‘hands’ travel all over her body with exquisite tenderness and absolute care while she panted and whimpered and dug her fingers into his thighs as she strained against thin air. Up and down her flanks, he curved the hands over her hips and slid them smoothly along her inner thigh while his mouth caressed the line of her throat.

She dragged in a long, slow breath. “Tease.”

“Can’t take it, Elizabeth?” He used her name deliberately, letting it whisper past her ear and felt her shudder.

He wasn’t expecting the hand that traced along the crotch seam of his leathers. “As long as you can,” she murmured.

Ronon had the advantage of being able to see what he was doing as he gently pulled her shirt front open, buttons slipping neatly out of their holes as the edges parted. On the other hand, she had the advantage of a more direct approach.

His cock tightened as her hand slipped into his leathers, and breathing suddenly became an effort. He leaned his head against hers and swallowed hard, his lips moving in her hair as her fingers traced up and down the damp flesh.

It took more concentration than he liked to form the ghost hands on her body again, but when he achieved it, her caresses faltered. The ghostly hands smoothed across her skin, every inch of bared flesh stirring with their touch, while he nuzzled her throat and kept his hands firmly about her waist, tightening with the ebb and flow of desire.

* _You don’t have to hold back on my account_ ,* she murmured in his mind.

* _I know_ ,* he replied, smiling and letting her feel his amusement. He wasn’t holding back, he was waiting for the right moment.

Then, as two ghostly hands traced up her calves to her thighs and slid along her inner thigh with exquisite slowness, Ronon let the hands caressing her breasts drift down the length of her body. Linked as they were through the Red web, he could feel her anticipation like spice on his tongue as the two hands melded into a single tender touch, arrowing down past her waist and stirring the curls between her thighs...

But the finger that touched her core was real.

Her moan and the writhe of her hips was intoxicating as any drug they’d given him as a slave. High on the sense of both power and submission, Ronon traced his finger over her with darker intent, felt the nails of her left hand prick his thigh through his leathers as she was driven higher, higher...but the fingers wrapped around his cock only flexed slightly, teasing him, keeping him hot.

Tenderness, gentleness, consideration for what he was - a Red-Jewelled Warlord Prince of the Blood - with all that it implied...

In the psychic plane, she wrapped her mind around him, Red to Red, distaff to spear, witch to male, Queen to Warlord Prince. In the shadows of the garden, their mouths locked as her body splintered, shattered, melted in the furnace of desire offered and desire satiated, and she shared the experience with the man who’d taken her there.

He’d never shared a sexual experience like this: he’d never had a witch who was willing to open her mind to him in orgasm.

Dimly, he was aware of his hand stroking her clit, of his hand cupping her breast, the pliant mischief of her mouth, the curls that tickled his neck as she rode out the waves of pleasure that surged through them both, leaving them replete on the bench in the garden.

Finally she shifted, gently easing away from him. Ronon pressed his hand against her lower belly, refusing to let her leave. Elizabeth turned her head to look at him, and her fingers flexed around him. Ronon sucked in a slow breath and bit back a protest as those fingers trailed the length of his cock then slipped out of his leathers entirely.

Witchfire bloomed in a lantern hanging in the tree and in the niches along the wall of crumbling brick, illuminating the smile that touched her lips as she turned and offered him her hand.

He followed her over to the small lawn and let her draw him down. The grass prickled a little against his palms as he bent to kiss her. He soon forgot that in the thrill of tracing his tongue down her body, listening to her moan a little as he rubbed the edge of his beard against her nipple before taking it in his mouth. The other nipple was attended to by a ghost mouth, suckling sweetly on the nub while her fingers splayed on his shoulder, flexing in rhythm with his kisses until she couldn’t take it any longer.

Unprepared for her revenge, Ronon felt the world turn and found her straddling his legs, leaning forward with her hands resting lightly on the muscles of his belly. Her grin was wide and wicked. “Trousers off, Prince.”

Obligingly, he vanished them and his boots, then inhaled sharply when her fingers began exploring the exposed flesh with light, lilting strokes. His voice wasn’t entirely steady as he told her, “Yours, too, Lady.”

Green eyes gleamed at him in mischievous laughter as Elizabeth bent over him, and his buttocks tightened and the world pulsed red and white as her lips traced down his cock, then up again, limning the head with her tongue.

When she sat up again, she’d vanished her trousers, but not the slip of her panties. So Ronon caught her arms, pulling her down to him and rolling them over again until she was on her back on the grass, and his fingers were tugging at the silken edge of her panties, easing them off. When they were down to her knees, he simply vanished them and slid his fingers back up the inside of her leg, until his fingers rested delicately at the juncture of her thighs.

She shifted a little, slicking his fingertips with her wetness.

Ronon hesitated.

He wanted to bring his fingers to his mouth and lick the taste of her from them... He wanted to plunge deep into her body and feel her surround him... He wanted to surrender completely to her in service: mind, body, soul, and Jewels.

The attraction and danger of a dark-Jewelled Queen to a dark-Jewelled Warlord Prince.

Elizabeth hadn’t asked for his service yet, but if - _when_ she did, Ronon wouldn’t just give her service, he’d give her everything.

And if he did, he’d belong to her - no going back, no walking away.

Once again, as he had with Sora, he hesitated. Seven years of wariness weighed up against seven days of freedom and the scales were balanced, his fear against his hope.

She was no Sora of the Gennii, but did he know enough about Elizabeth of Atlantis?

Elizabeth tipped the balance. One hand touched his cheek and he looked into eyes as dark and lambent as the falling shadows of the evening around them. “Trust me,” she murmured, propping herself up on one elbow. Her lips traced the line of his cheekbone to his ear where she breathed, “Do it.”

Was she aware of his thoughts, of his reservations?

Ronon didn’t know. But he wanted her. He trusted her.

He thrust into her and gave himself in surrender.

\--

He liked the feel of her sprawled out on top of him, breathless and languid.

It stirred his possessive instincts as much as the sex they’d just had. More. He’d been forced to bed enough witches in the last seven years - and after each encounter, he’d felt dirty, used.

This time had been his choice - his choice and hers.

And Ronon didn’t regret it at all.

“We should go in,” Elizabeth murmured against his chest, the curls of her hair tickling his throat.

“We should,” he agreed, but made no movement to shift her.

She moved after a moment, but only to settle herself more comfortably against him. But Ronon felt the change in her mood, a subtle shift from contentment to reticence. A little while later she murmured, “You’re still welcome to seek out any service you want...”

He tensed without thinking, then forced himself not to give in to the anger he felt at her words. “I don’t want just _any_ service,” he said.

Now that it was out, she was tense. “You haven’t seen anything other than this court,” she said and he shivered with the faint brush of her breath past his skin. “There are other Queens in Atlantis...”

After this evening? Not for him.

Ronon shifted, wanting away from the warmth of her. Obligingly - or maybe relieved? - Elizabeth slid off him, reaching for the shirt she’d discarded. Without a further word, he went hunting for the shirt and jacket she’d tossed into the darkness, a small witchlight accompanying him into the depths of the garden.

Besides, he needed a few seconds to ask himself if she was honestly offering him the choice, or if she just wanted to be rid of him.

 _You don’t owe me anything._

He’d offered anyway - not because of a debt, but because of desire. _Use me._ He’d assumed that meant service.

Maybe not.

When he returned, leathers back on his legs and shirt on his back, she’d put on her own shirt and pants and was scraping her hands through her hair. Belatedly, Ronon recalled that he still had her underwear and called in the dark blue silk scrap. But as she took it, the faintest of pink shades tinting her face by witchlight, he caught her wrist.

“I want to serve you.”

She looked at him, and he saw the tenderness in her expression - and the hunger, swiftly veiled. “I... Ronon, you need to see the other courts. You’ve only been here a week...”

“You didn’t hear me.”

“I _am_ hearing you,” Elizabeth said. “But I don’t think you understand what--” She caught herself.

“What?”

Her eyes met his, dark by night and witchflame. “I don’t think you understand what I’ll ask of you.”

“Service,” he said. “Surrender. My will to yours, my life to yours.”

“But you don’t even know what that means!”

“No,” he told her. “I’ve served in a Queen’s court. I know.”

She didn’t look convinced, and fear made him reckless.

He slid his hand up her arm, felt the shiver of her response and leaned in to close his mouth about the edge of her jaw. At the same time, he dropped his psychic barriers, allowing her to sense his vulnerability in this matter. He _wanted_ to serve her. He _needed_ to serve her. “Please,” he murmured.

Beneath his hand, her arm twisted, and her fingers closed about his forearm. “Ronon...” His name was like a sigh. “Very well,” she said, and her voice was stronger now. “If you want to serve me, then I have two conditions.”

Elation filled him at her words, and she gasped as she felt the surge of his pleasure through their contact. He grinned at her. “Name them.”

She drew back from him, putting distance between them, letting him raise his barriers again. Ronon tried not to resent the distance.

“You come on the tour through Atlantis.”

“As one of your court?”

“As a guest of my court,” she said firmly. “Wait,” she added when he began to protest. “If, at the end of the tour, you haven’t found a Queen you’d rather serve, then I’ll accept you in my court--”

“Done.”

“--but only as my Consort, with all the duties of the position. That’s the second condition.”

The words sent a shock through him.

 _As my Consort, with all the duties of the position._

Not just a male, or a warrior, or a sometime lover, but as her Consort.

Desire quivered through every nerve in his body, unstoppable hunger.

She was watching him, apprehensive of his answer. “Ronon, I know they used you as a pleasure slave in Belka. I understand if you don’t want to--”

“That’s your condition?” Ronon interrupted, keeping the disbelief from his words.

He knew his voice sounded flat in the small space of the garden, but he had no energy to spare to ask gently. As it was, he was trying very hard not to sound exultant.

Elizabeth took a deep breath and let it out, then lifted her chin. “Yes.”

He would have claimed a place in her court. Anywhere: First Circle, Thirteenth Circle - it didn’t matter to him. What mattered was the service. A Queen was entitled to any pleasure the males of her court could give her and Ronon had been prepared to seduce her if she hadn’t been willing to use him for pleasure.

After this evening, he would have used anything and everything that allowed him to share her bed.

With the Consort’s ring, he wasn’t only _invited_ to share her bed, he had rights and privileges that were only available to him as the Consort. Power and influence within the court - if he wanted them.

What Ronon wanted was the Queen who stood before him, expecting his rejection.

If she thought the idea of being her Consort repulsed him, she was going to be surprised.

“Fine,” he said evenly, and held out his hand to her. “I’ll go on the tour. If there’s no Queen I’d rather serve, I’ll take the Consort’s ring.”

Ronon watched her expression turn wary. “You’ll go on the tour?”

“I said I would,” he answered mildly. And he would hold her to it, no reneging.

Elizabeth studied him for a long moment, still trying to gauge his reaction. Someday - after she’d accepted him into her service and her bed - Ronon would explain to her the difference between being a pleasure slave and being a Consort. No, she didn’t understand now, but she would.

In the meantime... He held out his hand. “Are we going in, or are we staying out?” The gentle lean on the last words indicated more than just remaining in the garden.

This time, her flush was more than just a faint pink tinge in her cheeks. “Ronon, I’m sorry for using you--” She stopped as she saw his expression change.

“I’m not,” he said, simply. _And when you understand what you’ve offered me, you won’t be, either._ “I offered to serve,” he reminded her. “I still do.”

Maybe she caught a hint of his feelings on the matter, because the flush faded and she looked at him...differently. With a more thoughtful look instead of the guilt and pity of before. And even though she didn’t mean it as anything more than a consideration of what he was offering, he still felt his blood heat.

Warlord Prince to Queen, man to woman, it was too late for her to offer him another Queen to serve - he was hers: body, soul, heart, and Jewels. All of him. And she’d know that sooner or later: in seven days, seven moons, seven years.

Elizabeth knew he was trustworthy, but she didn’t _know_ him. Not yet.

She would.

Ronon had time to show her.

He waited as Elizabeth stepped up to him, took his hand, and led him out of the garden. And when she would have relinquished his hand, he curled his fingers around hers, keeping her hand in his as they walked back through the overgrown gardens and headed back to the house.

He claimed her as his Queen, just as she would claim him as a Warlord Prince of her court.

He’d spent seven years in slavery.

Seven days ago, he’d been freed by a Queen worth serving.

In another seven days he’d be allowed to take service in her court, and he’d offer everything he had and everything he was in her service.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand, thousand thanks to those of you who followed this from go-to-whoa. I would never, ever have gotten past the first chapter if you hadn’t kept telling me that you liked this. Feedback really does make the muse go ‘round.  
> Some special dedications should go out for this: firstly to Alli, who shamelessly feeds my Liz/Ronon addiction. Then to Jamie, who beta’d this for me. Many thanks to Sue, Sio, Abby, Amy, Shaz, and Bec who supported and encouraged during a tough time I went through while writing this; you picked me up, dusted me off, and occasionally kicked me in the pants to get me moving again. I appreciate that.  
> Finally, to all my friends who read this in spite of the weird-ass (weir-dex!) pairing, purely on trust of my writing ability: thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There are no words for how much your trust rocks my world.


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